


Chaos Out Of Shape

by Quoshara, speakmefair



Series: Ready Materials [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Consent, Multi, Unreliable Narrator, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:03:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 82,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quoshara/pseuds/Quoshara, https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a universe ruled by the masters of the City-Planets, Dominic Cobb and his friends are on the run for more than their lives. Dom's wife, Mal, has fallen prey to modification psychosis after being wired-in by Cobol, the true power behind the Gate-City. </p><p>Dom is in a wilderness of despair at the loss of his wife.  His companions, drawn from the highest and lowest castes of the Gate-City long before, and knowing how much they owe him, do what they can to keep things together. But moving to a borderland space station, while they regroup from the devastation of their world, may prove to herald the worst things they could ever have imagined -- among them an old war that has never been settled.</p><p>Past, present and future collide and annihilate, most of all for Eames, the Psion soldier who controlled time's passage, and Arthur, the City-Soldier who sold his abilities for the chance to kill the Psions in the name of the Gates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**prologue i. {through that window — all else being extinct}**

The Mandell 729 was not the most modern style craft they could have procured, but it did have the advantage of being very, very fast. _That must be important,_ Ariadne guessed, _when you're running from someone who knows you so well._

Someone who, thanks to a stunning display of the best of permanent modifications gone wrong, might well know what you were doing before you did it.

Someone who now owned that possibility and all its inherent capacity for mass annihilation and destruction — and who was wholly given over to Cobol's faction.

Cobol, who now, thanks to those same permanent modifications, rendered into a wired configuration of brain and machinery that no one person should have been able to wear — that no one person _could_ wear at once and stay sane — had gained power unimaginable.

Knowing that possibility, that there was a chance they might be out-thought before they started to contemplate an achievable means of escaping the Gate-Planet — that was one of the reasons why Arthur and Eames, the easiest out of all Dom's group for Yusuf to use in his mod-hacking, had taken over the planning of their escape. 

The other reason they had needed to take charge, of course, was Dom himself, Dom who was not only running from Cobol, but his own wife.

Dom, one of the Gate-Planet's few permanent-mod creators, Dom who, thanks to his love and his own genius, had now become the most personalised target of them all.

Dom, whom none of them would leave now, because in the days that were so far away and still so close, in the too-short era when they had been legal, and successful, and walked freely under the twin suns of the Gates, he would have sold his soul and more to protect them.

They owed him the same.

By the time Ariadne had heard the news of Mal's defection to Cobol from a distraught Miles, wasted a hemi-cycle wondering if she should pack anything, and finally just scoured the city on her little hover-bike until she found them all, they had been scrambling for a getaway in the docking bay at the port-end of the city, right past the Horn Gate and into the Onyx sector.

Yusuf had been using the salt water to fuel his stunning, horrible little temp-mod patches, while Arthur and Eames (it had to be Eames, even though she had never seen that particular holo before, she knew it had to be him) firing off illusions and lasers and _oh-gods-metal-bullets-no_ and air-frying, electrical deconstructs, had been working together with the trained precision of a two-man militia.

But Dom — Dom looked as though he had been left in a mod-decay, utterly wiped and blank; he had already pretty much retreated into a frozen ball of grief and regret.

Even the knowledge that he was deserting his children to the sole care of their grandparents had not seemed to make a dent in the black wall that he'd wrapped himself up in.

Ari wasn't sure if she could ever love someone that much, if she ever wanted to after seeing what this was doing to all her friends. That was part of why she had offered — well, _demanded_ , really, _begged_ , if she were honest, to go with them, thinking that they needed someone who was a bit more divorced from all of the emotional hang-ups surrounding their run —because while she knew far more than she wanted to about the woman pursuing them, she had only met Mal once, briefly, at some faculty/mentor function that Miles had taken her to. 

Mal had already been heavily into permanent modifications by then, one of the few on the city-planet of the Gates who was strong enough to wear more than two at any one time — although Ariadne would not have been able to tell had she not been warned by Miles beforehand. 

They were obviously high-end and customized for discretion, and the beautiful long-sleeved, high-necked gown she was wearing had hidden any ports, in use or otherwise, that might have been visible to the naked eye.

Ariadne had wondered what they did, what she was enabled for; whether she possessed the powers of craft-control or long-distance interface; holos or illusion; of instant information-access and the power to alter it as she pleased, or even of wiring skill, the power to connect herself directly into any machine shown her.

She now knew it was all of them, and more, but back then, their meeting had left little impression on her other than the fact that Dom's wife was lovely, intelligent and rather aloof. Of course, the aloofness might have been the prologue of what was to come.

And what had come was chaos. 

Mal wired up through her mods to every convert-vid and screen-sender and info-prog created, lost into the depths of Cobol's ruling party and lost to Dom and lost to the city she had once talked of saving — Mal lost, lost, lost, lost because she had dreamed of something greater than all of them, better than what they were. 

Lost because she had wanted perfection for everyone she loved and never thought they might need her to be part of it, or perfection would cease to exist.

Ariadne knew about perfection, because she had lived in it and with it all her life, even before she had quite been aware of what it entailed. 

Child of the ruling cities, she was named after an old myth no-one had even thought to tell her about until she met Eames, who had been very drunk and wearing a holo of an old woman, and had spun her out the story of the girl who held the secret of the Labyrinth. 

"Did she build it?" Ari had asked him, never imagining this was the man who would be dragging his hands through long dark hair two years later, a old-style Celtoid holo who was fraying at the edges with time and frustration as he cursed all temp-mods and love and Mal and Arthur's piloting skills and Yusuf's patches.

"No." The old, fine, beautiful skin had creased into a thousand delicate wrinkles, the eyes dark and still large and very clear in the silvery face. Laughter and mockery and kindness, all at once. "She defeated it."

It was three months before she had met him again, and then she didn’t recognise him, because he looked like a slightly younger version of Miles, and he had laughed at her — and _then_ she’d known him, because no-one else had treated her like that, ever.

It was five months before he had been the one to finally introduce her to Yusuf — she had been asking Dom for what felt like ever, and he’d always edged away from the subject, and Arthur was a pointless target for requests — and he’d made the introduction like someone giving a festival present, a beautifully mysterious unknown, the exact opposite of everything Yusuf really was. 

She thought it had probably amused the hell out of him.

And it was another thirteen months after that, thirteen months of dancing on their outskirts and looking in from the safety of her academic towers; of flirting with their connections and their lives and enjoying the freedom she would always have to walk away when she wanted, before she realised that loss and death and destruction and betrayal and all, she wanted in, and permanently.

Ariadne, sheltered heir to the gold-flecked towers the cities were so proud of, born a breath away from the heart of the Ivory Gate, now found herself huddled on an old shuttle-craft, and swallowed her intrinsic pride in herself, and instead listened to Eames cursing and Yusuf shouting about equipment and the lack of it, and the terrifying silence that was Arthur in the middle of it all, lost to his decaying temp-mod and trying to save them, and wondered what in the seven hells was wrong with her, that this was the first time she'd felt alive.

"Got it! Got it!" Yusuf's voice rang out. "Switching over to independent navigation in two minutes."

Arthur's voice was low and tense, but completely calm for all that, "Can you make it any sooner? I'm jumping us around as much as I safely can, but she's so damn fast, I don't know if we can keep ahead of her for another two minutes."

"You might have to make it unsafe, Arthur!" Eames shouted back from where he was monitoring their shields.

The 'she' in question was Mal, of course, tracking them through their nav systems, trying to yank back control from Arthur's increasingly tenuous grip on his piloting temp-mod, Mal trying to bring them back under Cobol's influence.

Mal, refusing to let Dom leave her even if it meant his death.

"It's already fucking unsafe —" Arthur was the closest to yelling Ariadne had ever heard him, and that included the time Eames had got Yusuf to design a holo for him that looked like Arthur's mother, and Dom had described it in loving and gleeful detail.

Because Arthur, of course, Arthur who had long ago chosen a permanent modification that allowed him to see through holos and illusion-mods, and then had to endure its malfunction, so that he would never be able to see them again, had no idea what Eames was portraying. 

It had been part of the fun, part of the silly, spinning days where she had thrown out designs for them and watched them play with her mind's treasures as though they were worth something real; not just the hoarded toys of a dreaming girl who would never need such skills. 

The borrowed Academe, sent by Miles to taste real life, and getting so much more than she had ever imagined.

"We should go back," Dom said dully. "She won't — I can't. She, I should, I have to..." he trailed off, which was probably a good thing, because Ari didn't think anyone was up to coping with him trying to take over right that second. Or possibly ever again.

"Thank you, Dom, and if anyone's interested, I have _thirty seconds_ before temp-decay," Arthur said icily. Eames turned around in a blur that Ariadne was pretty sure meant he had very little time left with regard to his appearance, and grabbed Yusuf by the shoulders.

"Mate, if you don't pull up a patch for him, I will _eviscerate_ you, we clear?" he demanded, and Ariadne had the distinct and horrible feeling that she was hearing his real voice. 

It wasn't as though she could blame him, because a temp-mod decay meant Arthur, whose permanent mod was irreparably broken anyway, fused into his cells like some old cancerous sickness, would be forcibly disconnected.

It meant something that might destroy his mind and body like a blown fuse, and no. _No._ Arthur needed time, he needed to be able to walk away of his own volition, he needed — 

"I need to finish yours —" Yusuf sounded weirdly frantic, because stars above, who cared right now whether everyone on this doomed shuttle knew what Eames really looked like, Arthur could _die_ , what was so — 

"Yusuf," Ariadne whispered, unheard and unheeded. "Yusuf, he's right, you've got to —"

"I do not. Bloody. Care." Eames sounded as though he were on some kind of weird audio glitch, the words slurred and slowed and deepened, and Ariadne felt the bile rise in her throat again, as it had when they all got into the Mandell — 

"That's so fucking sweet, really, Eames, and now I would kind of like to be alive to appreciate these fine sentiments, so can SOMEONE HURRY UP," Arthur growled at the console. Apparently the idea that he would very soon be the mental equivalent of a blown fuse was no more than an irritation to him.

"Done! Done!" Yusuf slammed something onto Eames that made him yell out in mingled outrage and pain and sent him to his knees, and then pressed a button that made everything — stop.

After the last few cycles of miserable, jolting hell, it felt like complete paradisical bliss.

"How terribly inefficient," said a new voice.

The Artificial Intelligence on the Mandell craft was supposed to have been a standard, voice-only interface... but apparently something else was unexpected on this completely fucked up ride from Hell... or to Hell, Ariadne wasn't yet certain which it was, yet. The distinguished face that now appeared on their monitor looked directly at Arthur, before speaking again.

"Would you like me to take over the navigation systems?" The voice said that if the answer were no, Arthur was indeed insane.

"Yes... Fuck, Yusuf, fuck!" Arthur cursed as the pain of Yusuf renewing his temp-mod crashed through him. "Hells dammit, yes!"

The face of the AI's avatar looked merely amused at all of the human histrionics. "I have continued your random jump sequence, but a final destination will allow me to conserve fuel and make certain we actually arrive."

"That _will_ be nice, I agree," Yusuf said, sounding seconds away from laughing. Ariadne wondered who would hit him first when he finally gave in.

Oddly enough, she thought it might well be her.

"Quadrant thirty, station nine," Eames said to the floor. He was still bent double, but he looked less — blurry, for want of a better word. "Arthur, disconnect the fuck out of that chair before you fall out of it. Ari, take over."

"Ooh, pirates," said Yusuf. "I like pirates."

"I don't know how to pilot, that's Arthur's job!" Ariadne's voice had in no way hit the realms of squeaking. It would be undignified. And childish. And make them wonder yet again why the fuck she was there other than that Eames was a complete sap when someone begged him for things. 

Like, say, becoming an official kind of stowaway.

"I shall guide you," said the AI calmly, and he sounded like a professor, he sounded safe and trustworthy and utterly reliable, and it was something no-one else had managed in the last three days, and Ari's head hurt, and — 

" _Fine_ ," she snapped, and uncurled from the metal bench, getting to her feet rather painfully. She'd been there for three of the shuttle's cycles, enough time for Yusuf and Dom to take sleep shifts amidst the chaos. She envied them their bone-deep exhaustion, because hey. It got them _sleep_. 

She didn't think Arthur or Eames had even considered sleep in Gate-time days. Arthur still had quite a lot of blood on him, flaking off in patches by now, and while the holo didn't, because things like that didn't stick — _must be a great giveaway in war,_ she thought absently, and then — _huh, of course_ — she thought Eames probably did too, underneath all his mod-patches.

He'd smelled like it, when he came to check on her after the shuttle was out of grav-pull. Blood and something darker, burnt out, like old fried electrics. 

She was used to him smelling like high-class cologne, the stuff he'd admitted was one of his luxuries, and the odd warm ordinary-thing underneath it that was himself, and sometimes his clothes and hands smelt like the spices from Yusuf's cooking — all the things that even a high-grade holo, and Yusuf's were the best, couldn't disguise — and the sheer wrongness of him in that moment, when she couldn't smell any of that, but only the clinging miasmas that meant _death_ , had made her want to retch. 

Seeing Arthur, straight after that stomach-turning moment, Arthur swinging himself into the little console-room, coated in blood and grinning like a madman — that had made her actually throw up, retching water and bile and the remnants of her breakfast straight onto the Mandell's floor, and she wasn't going to stop being humiliated by that any time soon. It had mostly been because she'd thought the blood was his, but still. 

Embarrassment for life.

Ariadne pushed her mind away from that, and thought instead of how showers should be compulsory installation on shuttles.

_For all those handy-dandy running-away needs..._

Oh lords, she needed sleep. And a sandwich. And one of those sparkling citric things with the caffeine-shots, fuck, the ones they sold at Aqa, down by the towers. Yeah. She could almost taste it, the crisp head-clearing sting of it, and oh, she wanted it so badly. 

She was never going to taste it again. Lost, the stupidest of little things, lost like everything else, and why did she want to cry for that?

Ariadne sniffed, not even bothering to make it inconspicuous, at her armpit. She stank of fear-sweat, which had a heavy, metallic tang to it all of its own. Another first.

Make her third up for the showers, then. Or the basin. Or, hell, a sonar wash, she was well past being picky.

Arthur tapped in a few more things, disconnected, and stood, trading places with her. He was shaking, just enough to be visible, and Ari winced for him. 

"Do I... do I need to connect?" She didn't use her interface very often, preferring the creativity and emotionalism of doing things with her hands, rather than her mind. She didn't have a perm-mod chosen, even. Not yet. 

No mods in her skin, nothing permanent, not for her, not for the baby Academe with all the time in every world ahead of her.

Not for her.

What good was she ever going to be, in this place they were now headed for?

She swallowed more nausea, tried to smile.

"Not necessary," the AI replied. "At least, not at this time."

She nodded, looking over the gauges and switches and way too many buttons, as the AI guided her into the basics of piloting the Mandell.

"That was not so bad, was it?" the AI asked her eventually, once they were through with random jumps and sedately (by comparison) on their way to Station Nine.

"No... not at all." Ari replied, "Thank you."

The AI looked oddly surprised at her response. "You are — quite welcome."

"Eames, why Station Nine?" She now had time to ask questions since they seemed to have lost their tail, both physically and electronically.

"He knows them." That was Dom, oddly enough. "It's where he came from after —"

"Shut up, Dominic," Arthur said, remarkably gently, and she peered over her chair to see that Dom was sitting up, running his hands over his face as though checking it was still there, and Arthur was sitting on the floor with Eames — or at least his holo — apparently asleep, or at least resting on his shoulder. 

It was always strange to see them together, Arthur the only one in the room able to see where Eames really was and what he was doing, and his gestures aimed at something that was like the shadow in the corner of the mirror. 

Even when Eames was still, in rare moments such as this, it was unnerving. Arthur sighed, bone-weary. "It's officially outside anyone's domain, Ari. And yeah, the pirates use it."

"Traitors," Eames mumbled. Not asleep at all, then. Maybe the holo was shutting down to conserve energy, or something — Ariadne had long since given up trying to work out how Eames's mods functioned.

"Yeah, you can shut up too," Arthur said with faint exasperation. "No, they're not. Just people who don't always — agree."

"Pirates," Yusuf repeated happily.

"They'll take us on," Arthur said at last. 

"Mad skills," Eames said into his shoulder, or possibly his ear. It was hard to tell. The holo at least was talking into his rather tattered suit. Judging from Arthur's expression, Ariadne suspected it was more likely to be his ear. 

Dom laughed, the sound tired and breathy.

"Mad, at any rate," he said, and lay back on his bench, closing his eyes.

"And you need to adjust the directives here," said the AI. Ariadne nodded, and tapped it in. Arthur yawned, the sound oddly loud amidst the humming of engines and machinery.

"Go to sleep," Ari said, unable to keep the fondness out of her voice. "We'll be fine."

"We?" Arthur asked, drowsily curious.

"Me and AI here," Ariadne said with a grin at the avatar.

"My name," the AI said, managing to sound offended, "is Saito." 

"Well, and _hello_ ," Eames murmured, managing lechery from the cusp of dreams.

"Go to sleep, for fuck's sake, Eames, give us all a break and catch up on being coherent," said Arthur wearily, and the silence returned. Ariadne smiled at the avatar.

"Hi, Saito," she said, feeling a bit shy and a lot stupid. But the avatar smiled back.

"Hello, Ariadne," it said.

**

The space station was even more dreary and slapdash than Eames remembered. 

It had begun life as a Type II Mapping Station with sleek, functional lines, a twenty man crew and berth space for up to five ships of cruiser size or smaller. As time had gone on, it had been added to and subtracted from with no rhyme or reason, bits welded on as different functions were required of it with absolutely no aesthetics in mind. 

It now resembled, pretty much, exactly what it was — a haven for the dregs of space, held together with spit and the determination of a small engineering crew that sold dock space and air to the highest bidders. Their mind set was that if they had to make their home in a trash heap, they would make it the best lords-damned trash that credits could buy... if only for themselves.

Luckily, it was a mind set that Eames understood all too well. To take what you could get and hold on to it with whatever it took — well. Simple, really.

He had however still waffled about what mod to use, what disguise. Male? Female? Young? Old? In the end, he decided it didn't really matter, and stuck with the patch Yusuf had given him earlier, the easy-going Celtoid with inherent charm who inspired interest for his looks and then hinted at easy, facile trust at the kind of level the space-station operated on.

_I'll sell you out, but only for the best offer. No worries._

It wouldn't matter in the end, because while the first impressions of his appearance would get him where he wanted to go, he would then need the people of use in this place to know _him_ , or at least the 'him' offering them a reason to take on a self-sufficient crew. He needed them to come away from meetings, official and unofficial, able to remember and respect his competence at what he did. 

He would need to remind them of someone they had known, or the false persona they had once known, at least. He was damned sure he didn't want to remind them of the torn-up Psion soldier who had stayed there once.

But then, there was no-one left but Arthur who associated Eames-from-the-Onyx-sector with that long-ago relic of the dead Corps.

He needed to show them someone familiar, untrustworthy-trustworthy; someone who was quick-thinking and brought good bargains and brought them gain and was worth the initial outlay.

They would remember _that_ Eames.

They would remember the holo-master, the magician, the means to any end they wanted.

That was the only way he would be able to convince them that they should be allowed to remain, since they had no money, at least none that they could access safely, and nothing to trade beyond skills.

So, for the moment, he was on his own. Arthur had protested, of course, but this was one time he was determined to have his way. The type of man Eames was about to put on display was known by the men he needed to see, trusted as much as they ever trusted, and adding someone else to that mix would just make it harder.

There was also the underlying fact that he didn't want anyone to see who he really was, not now. Not while he was playing the part of someone whom the space-station might want, but he hated.

He didn't think he could bear to see disgust or pity in Arthur's eyes.

"Well, look at you!" One of the prostitutes that commonly frequented the docking area, leaning against a section of the disused piping that was less rusty than most, called out to him. "Been out long, mate? Need some company? I can take the edge right off that long flight."

Eames waved the man off. "Not today. But I might pay for a bit of information."

"Oh, he don' know nuthin'." The woman standing behind him scoffed. "Well, 'less y'coun' wha' drugs y'buy t'war' off fif'een varieties o' venereal disease 'zinformation." 

"Yeah, yeah, 'zif y'can off'r 'im anything bar a quick blow."

Eames laughed, more at home than he had thought with the way Onyx-speech dropped into the station slurs as soon as contact was made, and looked at the woman. "What about you then? You know where I can find a man called Rontello, or a big Castarian named Lukho? Dies his hair blue and favors Rhodium chains?"

"I migh' do," the woman said, eyeing Eames. "Or it migh' be tha' they'd have even more 'f an interes' tha' some Onyx-speaking flash is givin' their names ou'."

"If I were you, I'd leave that concern to them." Eames let a smirking grin touch his lips but kept his voice level. "I'm pretty sure that one or the other will be very happy to see me."

"What you paying?"

"Depends. What you asking?"

"Fi'ty credits."

"Twenty."

"Forty."

"Twenty-five..." Eames paused, his eyes roaming over the docking area to see who was paying attention and who wasn't. It mostly came under the heading of 'wasn't', other than a few glances of amusement at what they assumed was some poor fool getting sculled. 

_Nothing to worry about_ , his easy stance proclaimed. _Onyx man, rich man, out for fun, my business._

And their curiosity passed as though over shields.

Eames really hadn't wanted to use any of their limited credits, but it took money to make money, especially here, and he didn't want anyone to know how desperate they actually were. "And another five if the information is good."

"Done."

The transaction was done, information and money changed hands with a smile. It was a start at least. Rontello was gone, dead some thought, but Lukho was in the Portside bar, at the tables. 

Vixen was his game if Eames remembered correctly, low stakes mostly with a hundred cred buy-in.

"Thanks, love." Eames winked at her. 

The male prostitute snorted a laugh, "Nex' time take th'blow. She'd only charge y'fi'teen and that'd bring y'lot less trouble, I'm thinkin'."

Eames laughed, less from amusement at the statement than at the thought of what would happen if he dropped the holo, took the offer, let them see.

_Psion. Dead man. Time-soldier._

Murderer, and the marks on his skin telling the world he would never be brought to repent.

If it weren't for the others, waiting for him to produce a series of metaphorical rabbits out of an invisible hat, it might even have been tempting.

**

The bar he'd been directed to was no more than Eames expected, the alcohol barely one step up from engine coolant and the patrons sizing him up as he walked in the door.

_Onyx, bit of cash to burn, just arrived, looking for someone or something: a game of Vixen..._

That much they could easily read. Easily, because that was exactly what Eames was projecting with every step he took into the room.

They'd take his money and be glad of it, and if he gave them a bit of entertainment along with it, they might just not strip him of everything else, was what was being conveyed in return.

He didn't have to read them to know that. He'd lived it often enough.

Lukho was indeed at the tables, affable as a basking well-fed snake, the night very obviously going his way.

A quick grin passed over Eames's face. Yeah, that was Lukho alright, he had two ladies face up on the table and the dice roll was a seven. Lukho bid twenty creds and rested the edge of the cards in his hand on the table. Eames recognized the tell. Lukho had nothing in his hand.

He watched to the end of the game, as Lukho simply cashed everyone out with his pile before he could even be called, pulling the creds towards him to a chorus of groans as he exposed his hand of nothing with a smirk.

Eames moved forward, sleepy-eyed and curious, inoffensive to the nth degree.

"This ongoing, or can I bid in?" he asked mildly, addressing himself on the surface to the entirety of the table, while making it clear he had seen who was running things.

Lukho gave him an appraising look. "Got the creds, can always bid," he said with a faint grin.

_Rook you blind,_ said his flat eyes.

_Like fuck,_ Eames thought, and his holo smiled.

"Got a seat, then?" he asked. "Only standing might give me an unfair jump on you."

Lukho grinned. "You want a seat, you find one, you want to play, you bid."

It seemed fair. It really wasn't going to be. Eames stifled a sigh.

He took two steps away and pulled a chair out from under the seat of a turf-miner at the next table. The man was so drunk he didn't even seem to notice, just curled up under the table and snored.

"A chair... and..." Eames looked over the table."... my bid."

He tossed the creds toward the center of the table and waited for his cards.

Lukho wasn't dealing. That wasn't a surprise. Cheating wasn't part of the fun for him, at least not the type that led to open accusations. He preferred to outbid, to make people fold, to gain and gain until everyone's pockets were empty.

And then the _real_ game would start. Chits, promises, time, water rations, skills laid on the table for Lukho to use at will, put there by people who wanted to go home with enough creds to trade for food.

Eames hung on through all of it... winning some, losing a little... never too much in either direction, no suspicious eyes cast his way, until what was on the table would mean something. He just hoped that Lukho had to bluff and that he could cover whatever bid was made.

He rolled the dice when it was his turn, betting a bit more than he had in other hands — two Lords on the table, two Ladies in his hand and a ten on the dice. It was a good hand and if he had counted correctly there were only three more Ladies still in play out of seven possible. He was fairly certain that Lukho didn't have them.

Apparently Lukho was fairly sure _everyone_ could work that out, because he folded with a faint grimace of resignation.

Eames took that one. He made sure to be outbid on the next. He set himself up as a cautious player who pretty obviously never went in unless he had a good hand, and made that his tell.

Five more games, and he won from Lukho in what was obviously a fluke, both of them with good-but-not-good-enough hands, but Lukho's just slightly worse.

Nothing to get upset about, nothing to make Lukho reassess what was going on.

Just enough to make a man start doubting the cards were going his way.

The play continued, sometimes fast and furious, sometimes slow and considered, with Lukho winning the majority, but not in his usual devastating fashion. Lukho's frown was deepening. Eames, for his part, kept his losses to a minimum, only winning those hands that Lukho dropped out of early on. That was how to keep the fish on the line, make him think that the only reason Eames was winning was because Lukho had dropped out of the game.

When they finally got down to it and play became serious, Eames's groundwork paid off. Since, other than that one 'fluke' game, Eames was only betting throughout play when he had very good hands indeed, Lukho was quite reasonably convinced that it was his style, and adjusted accordingly.

He stayed in now no matter what Eames bet, intent on whittling his creds away until, like the others, he was putting more than money on the table.

Eames changed his game, and folded out twice in a row, apparently confused by Lukho's sudden determination to simply remove him financially.

The next hand, he stayed in. Lukho, exasperated, folded out.

Eames had won himself more than creds, now. He was winning other people's rations, time, and skills. And he started to put them in as well.

And when, eventually, Lukho was forced to place some of his own time on the table to cover the bid, Eames knew he had him.

"How?" Lukho asked as they played the final hand and he saw his chits sitting in front of Eames."How did you know I was bluffing?"

"Ah, Lukho, mate, I've told you before, don't rest the edge of your cards on the table. It gives you away every time."

"You what—?" Lukho frowned and then leaned in closer, looking Eames in the eye. "I don't... Wait, it is you. Eames? Damnit, Eames!"

Fortunately Lukho seemed more inclined to be amused than angry. Eames grinned with relief. It could have gone either way.

"What are you doing here, you old bandit?" Lukho slapped him on the shoulder and Eames pretended not to notice when the motion was used to cover the retrieval of Lukho's chits out of his winnings.

"Heard about the Gate-City?" Eames asked in reply.

Lukho sat back, his lips pursed. "Rumours," he said eventually, blowing out air. "Cobol had some kind of takeover, and the Fischer Corps are out of the quadrant. Long as they stay out of mine, I don't care."

"Bit more than that," Eames said.

"A lot more?"

"Yeah."

"Anything to do with the Mandell in the docking bay?"

"She's clean."

"Yeah, or she'd be gone, we're not soft in the head."

"Cobol's wired the Gate-City and the quadrant's outposts into perm-mods," Eames said. Lukho's eyes went wide, and he sat up.

"They've wired through a person? That's— that's just wrong, Eames." And how much of a story did that tell? Lukho would have killed them all if their ship had come in traced, spaced them without one feeling of guilt. Even _he_ knew that what Mal had become was an abomination. "What's that got to do with you?"

"Can't go into details, Lukho. Wouldn't be healthy for you or me." Eames shook his head, the long dark hair of his mod falling forward to give him a more secretive look. "But we need a place to be, off the main grid. We need to stay here."

Lukho's smile was deeply, deeply unpleasant as he leant forward. "And what are you bringing to the table, Eames? Because that's one hell of a buy-in."

"You mean aside from me?" Eames smirked. He knew Lukho valued his skills, even if he tended to use them for some of the most meaningless drivel that had ever caused his brains to leak out in sheer boredom. "What are you needing?"

"No." Lukho cut him off, flatly. "You're hot. And it's Cobol. You tell me what you have and I'll decide if it's enough."

Eames gave a terse nod. "I understand."

"And?"

"Well, I do have a rather skilled pilot. He's the one that got us out, after all."

Lukho gave a bit of a huff, "I have pilots, Eames."

"Not who can see through illusions and holos you don't," Eames pointed out. "And he was City-Corps."

" _Was_ he?" Lukho brightened. "Okay. Him I can use. If he'll take orders."

_You can try and give them, sure,_ Eames thought with an inward shudder of laughter. "City-Corps," he repeated, and Lukho nodded, satisfied.

"That's fine for you and him." Lukho nodded."How many more are we expected to absorb?"

"Just three."

Lukho huffed again."Can't take in three deadweights for that, Eames. You know the price. If they don't contribute they aren't worth the air."

"I don't have deadweights, Lukho." Eames argued right back."I have a temp-mod designer and a perm creator."

Lukho frowned, "That's only two."

"She's just a student, Lukho. But she'll work — unload cargo, help where she can."

"What does she look like? I can put her on the docks."

"No." Eames cut him off. "She's just a kid. You're not going to pimp her out, no matter what she looks like."

"I need humpers more than lumpers, Eames..." Lukho laughed at him. It was cold and cruel, but no more than Eames expected from him.

"The temp-mod designer is Yusuf," Eames said quickly, and hell, that was supposed to be the thing he threw in to up _his_ game, not concede to Lukho's, but there was nothing else for it.

The thought of Ari at the docking station was enough to turn his stomach into acid. And Lukho would do it, and thanks to her stupid idea of loyalty, Ari couldn't even be sent back to the Gates —

"Yusuf," Lukho said blankly.

"Yeah."

"You expect me to believe you prised Yusuf off the city-planet."

Eames shrugged. "He's my mate, got caught up in this, figured he'd get out."

Lukho whistled. "That's — getting him to stay, that's a hell of a chit you're making me match, Eames."

"And you don't stand a chance if you send the girl to the docks."

"Attached, is he? We can use —"

"No. Not attached. But he won't work for you, if you try." Eames held out his hands like a balance, weighing. "She's a pretty good hard-tech. Fixes mechs, I've seen her. You don't have that many who can run the base workshops, Lukho."

"And the perm guy?" Lukho prompted."Give me something here, Eames."

"Cobb."

"Fuck."

"Yeah." Eames nodded. He wasn't going to tell Lukho why Dom was with them, but that name, along with Yusuf should seal the deal. "He's going to need a bit of time though. He got a bit... shook up during our little... journey."

"How much time?" Lukho gave Eames a calculating look.

"Five full cycles, not the shift ones. At least."

"Five?" Lukho didn't seem at all happy with that. "Fine. But you owe me. You, Eames. Four jobs at no charge."

"Two."

"Three with no complaints as to what they are."

Eames considered. Lukho had asked him to do some pretty unsavoury things in the past. "I don't kill people and I don't harm children."

"Agreed."

"And I want space for them, Lukho. I'll bargain with you for extras, but I'm not having you put anyone in with your crew."

"Space," Lukho said very dryly, "we got. Free choice of. But Eames, you've not said it, and I've got to. Bar Yusuf, you brought me cits."

"Yeah." Eames shrugged.

Lukho leant across the table, and Eames had the unnerving feeling that the station-runner was looking into his real eyes, not those of the holo.

"They fuck up, they break my rules? You're paying. And it won't be in creds."

"I wouldn't have expected anything else, Lukho." Eames nodded tersely. "I'll tell them."

"See that you do." And with that, Lukho was gone, leaving Eames with the rest of his winnings and deep thoughts to occupy him.

Yusuf wouldn't be a problem. Dom was smart enough to learn quickly and Ari was too naïve and unsure of herself to cause much trouble. It would be Arthur he'd have trouble convincing, but if he were honest, told him the truth... Arthur would still hate it, but he'd see the necessity.

Or so Eames hoped.

**

**prologue ii: {cracked the walls}**

They'd been on the station for a whole cycle before Arthur could relax enough to think seriously about working. The post-flight adrenal letdown, combined with his overwhelming sense of guilt, had almost put him on level with Dom for the first few days. 

His brain kept telling him that none of it was his fault, that if Dom had not realized how far gone Mal was, there was no way that he could have guessed.

The problem was that all other parts of him; the parts he could usually shut away and lock down; his feelings and his instinct and what he unwillingly conceded was his heart, seemed to be in disagreement with his brain.

Ariadne was asleep, finally, shift-cycle after shift-cycle of intense effort to understand what her new role was, cycles of blazing out her automatic need to have all around her be pleased by her abilities, worn down to a fine sand of exhaustion. 

Yusuf was in his skill-bought workshop, creating temp-mods at the speed of an old-world sloth while he made up patches with his borrowed time, buying them all clemency.

Buying Eames the disguises they all needed to keep living.

Dom. Dom was — 

Best not to think of that.

Eames. Eames who had promised their souls and — 

Arthur pushed his hand between his teeth, bit down a little, thought of the Gates.

He'd seen their beauty every day as a child, towering over him, their texts inscribed with care and maintained against the unending tide of humanity that passed through them — but rather than a welcome home, he had always thought of them as an exit. 

They called to him, showing him only what lay beyond and never how to return. 

His mother had tried to teach him, had tried to instil the knowledge and wonder that they symbolized in every viewing of their stony magnificence. He couldn't — and wouldn't — see it. He was well educated, but little interested in education that only fed itself.

Gold flecked stone, and something they called ivory, and in calling it that, used the word like a charm-mod. 

Ivory, Ivory, the Ivory Gate. 

The Horn Gate, and what lay beyond them both.

The Horn Gate, the Onyx sector, the Houses of the Dead.

The Ivory Gate, and above it, impossibly delicate, soared the towers of the Academes. 

He thought of the people who had lived there, lived their lives according to the rules and expectations of the Horn Gate, the Ivory Gate, the Towers, the Onyx sector, the Houses.

The people he loved.

Eames and Yusuf, borrowing time for just long enough so that Dom could steal it.

Ariadne, who laughed at her own illusions in the barren green of borrowed fertility, who lent them all joy amidst the dusty residue of grass. Ariadne, stolen from the promises of the Academes, her clothes as richly embroidered as any promises made to the City-Corps, swinging on Eames's holo-arm and stealing kisses from the illusion-lips Arthur would never see, like one of the bees Dom brought into brief mechanical being, when he was feeling relaxed enough to amuse people with his skills.

Ariadne, Gate-child, City-child, Ivory-born solipsist, creating worlds that Arthur would never breathe within.

And Mal, lovely sophisticated Mal, with her dark floating hair and soft face that always seemed so deceptively frail, Mal who was always questing for just that bit more. 

Perhaps that was how she had fooled him into thinking she had it all handled, because he saw so much of himself in that questing nature. The difference being that his quest ventured ever out, away, beyond, while hers drew her deeper and deeper inside her self, drawing things towards her rather than taking those few steps beyond the Gates.

Dom had loved her, braver than any of them, he had dared to love her and marry her and give her all of his creations as a melding. 

Dominic Cobb, perm-mod creator, valued and sought-after, had given Mal something no-one else could even think of attaining towards — oh, of course he had given her a home, children, possessions, married status, he had given her all the things no-one had ever thought beautiful, brilliant Mallorie Miles could ever have wanted — but he had also given her perm-mod after perm-mod; creator-inventor Dom, he had presented them to her in elaborate beautiful gestures as another, lesser man would have found her old-world jewels, new-world metal.

Dom, who had given Mal so much more, too much more, than mere life could bear within her.

And now they mourned her, each of them in their own way. The guilt was almost insurmountable, and it was crippling Dom, and leaving him little better.

He had more than a few reasons to thank all the deities that he never prayed to for the one thing that kept all of them going for those first few of the space-station's revolutions, the one person that kept them moving, got them to the place they needed to be and then got them accepted. Eames.

Eames who had pulled them when they needed pulling and refused to give up on anyone and managed to drag them into life, or at least a semblance of it. 

Or rather, he had dragged Arthur into life. Arthur wouldn't and couldn't speak for Dom, and Ari and Yusuf seemed quite able to keep on living without any sort of help other than the bargains that gave them their staying-allowance.

Ari employed as a tool-designer, a metal-worker, low-grader level and basic. Ariadne, their golden Academe, who had spent her days in the towers, now to be working with tools and welding and molten heat — because she had no perm-mod and in the space-station's eyes very little status. 

She hadn't seemed to mind. 

Perhaps she was relieved they thought of her as being possessed of any skill at all, here in a world where the impractical application of any knowledge meant nothing to anyone. 

Yusuf was a bargain in his own right; Eames's own personal token, his primary bargaining chip. 

The Gate-Planet's foremost temp-mod designer, wanted by every outpost station throughout the galaxies, would now and always be recognised for his skills. 

Arthur was to be employed among the pilots — instructor, fighter, a point-man of sorts, he supposed, working out strategies and potential for them. Eames had told him to be what they asked for, and they asked for very little, compared to his actual skills, and it was a life he could manage if not endure with any hope... 

But Eames, Eames had gone to Dom, Eames had gone to make the Psion-request for a tattoo-naming, had gone to ask Dom to carve Mal's name into his skin in a gesture of ineradicable remembrance; Eames who had decided they all needed an end to their random flickers of inadequacy and guilt. 

Eames who would name Mal, and name grief, for the rest of his body's life.

Eames who had known that when he turned on his new, Yusuf-created holos, only Arthur would see what had been done.

Eames would now be bound to Dom, after this strange ritual, would be bound to him now and perhaps for all the time they had before them on this dead, strange station. Eames, concentratedly-determined Eames, who was the reason they had a place to stay and hadn't been space-vacced, Eames who had bargained them places here on a rust-brown nothingness of metallic boron-driven pipework and then —

And then — 

_I'll take it, darling, my shoulders were made for it._

What was Dom making now, what was he making of Eames, what was their inventor making out of blood and ash and guilt?

Arthur hoped it helped him, helped either of them, somehow. 

It was a miserable feeling, this pain. It was hurt and it was insanity and it was overwhelming disappointment in himself, disappointment for not stopping Mal — not stopping Dom — before all of this could happen, before they lost not only each other, but their home, their children, everything. 

That was his job, making sure that moment never occurred.

He was supposed to be the planner of the group, the one that saw the truth and life from all angles. 

He had failed.

He had failed. 

Just as he had never been able to see the beauty of what they called ivory, just as he was wired-up and wired-in and fused and broken into a mould that would never let him see the perfect heights of Eames's best holos, just as he would never be able to take anything Yusuf gave him and appreciate it for its true worth.

He had failed and he was failing and he would fail and — 

— and he would fail and fall and they would all fall with him, oh, lights and stars, they would all fall when he failed.

Sleeping Ariadne and absorbed Yusuf; Dom and Eames who were now forcing belief out of old death — 

"Arthur."

— and he didn't know what the fuck he could do about it — 

"Arthur."

— or even if he should do anything about it — 

" _Arthur_."

"What? Oh... Eames."

"Fucking _fuck_ ," Eames said in one of his moments of utter coherency, lights and stars and the lords of all seven hells, how could he possibly be so vapid —

( _but you didn't mock him when he stood in the landing bay and bought you in, bought you time, bought you rooms and places and status, did you?_ )

Arthur reminded himself of that, of what Eames had done out there in the landing bay, promising the space-rats help at any cost. Promising them help because however good they all were, they could not give broken, terrified, destroyed Dom a sanctuary without some kind of base. 

He thought of what he was going to give, what they were all going to have to give, and became angry at his own flippancy, and immediately wished he hadn't even travelled down that path of thought, because it led to a thorn-wall, and that wall was too much to think on, it was deception and cost and he couldn't — 

"I. Fuck. Too many places. Arthur, sorry."

Eames, wrapped in an old bulk-jacket, which meant his holo-mod was turned off. Eames, discarding the jacket quickly and trying to put it onto Arthur, which. Which. No. He didn't need — 

"I bought you a bit of water." Eames sounded as though he were talking to Ari, gentle and patient and kind, and that was just wrong. "Enough for a shower, a wash-up, yeah? Arthur. You're. You. You still. You. Um, there's still — you have blood — you need to shower, okay? You — when we went. Left. You still. Arthur, we were — the Gates, yeah? And you —"

Oh.

Oh.

Of course.

"Yeah... okay. You didn't need —" Arthur looked up at Eames. So close, so real, so much stronger than he ever would have thought. And so ready to do whatever they needed, whatever was needful. But still, he didn't need to —"I'll... I'll do that. Thank you?"

It was a piss-poor thank you after all Eames had done for them, and Arthur knew he had failed again.

Or hadn't, because Eames just gave him a crooked half-assed grin and said, "Hop. Go. Or I can wash your back and use up credits and then there will we —" 

"Oh fuck off," Arthur said with enormous relief, and went to use up precisely one hemi-cycle's worth of hot water and get to feel clean.

And when the water went cold, Eames pulled him out from under it and said furious things in Onyx-speech and said while he piled therm-wraps over him — 

"You get now, and we don't talk about it. You get now and then you have to hold us up. But now? Right now? Now you don't have to. It's all fine. We're fine. You can have now, promise." 

Now? He could have now? 

Arthur slumped against Eames, his head bowed and his now-clean body relaxing for the first time in days. He knew his brain was wound up and if he spoke at all it would be nothing but crap and babble and things that he'd regret saying the moment they came out of his mouth.

But now, somehow, he didn't seem to feel the need to speak, didn't feel the need to move, because... well, because Eames had said it was alright. He felt as though someone had stuffed his head in wool, detached and pain-free and incapable of any sort of direction or response.

When Eames pushed him backwards, he went without complaint, hovered over by heat-seeking, heat-engendering, half-sentient blankets and still looking into those strange-hued grey-blue eyes.

He let himself drift.

"I belong to you like this plot of ground, that I planted with flowers, and sweet-smelling herbs," Eames was saying, quiet and far away. "Sweet is its stream, dug by your hand, refreshing in the north wind. A lovely place to wander in, your hand in my hand. Each look with which you look at me sustains me more than food and drink."

Eames was reciting something, and Arthur had no idea what it was, or why he would be doing so, or why it had to be done, or why anyone cared.

He only knew that Eames's hands were warm even over the therm-wraps, that they were hard and callused and comforting. He smelled of blood and ash and sugar-spirits, and the lines around his eyes were kind and tired.

"You get now," he repeated, and put a hand over Arthur's eyes, the skin a little rough and smelling of old water and rust and the acetone rubbings of ancient paint.

It sounded like a promise.

It sounded possible.

And Arthur fell into sleep like damp wadded cloth, grey and dull and unnoticed, and forgot for so long (too long) what he had heard.

_Each look with which you look at me sustains me more than food and drink._

But the next time he heard it, it was not Eames who used those words to remind him.

It was Ariadne.

And it was on a planet that might as well have been beyond the Horn-Gate, for it was worse and better than the Houses of the Dead, all at once, and it was — 

"Come back to me." Later still than that, later even than Ariadne's strange moment of perfect recall, the words would leave Arthur's throat, his tongue, his lips, and he would know Eames could feel them, breath for breath, vibration given freely to half-dead synapses, and still he would not quite believe it was his voice. "Come back to me. Come home."

"Always," Eames would say then, Eames at the end of the world, at the end of existence, the sound of his usually caressing, language-loving, Onyx-lilted voice made choked and rasping by fear. 

His voice was never quite within his control, when he knew Arthur could hear its real tones. And Arthur was never sure what anyone else heard in it.

He only knew what he heard, and that it was true.

At the end of all hope and the end of all existence, Eames would swallow, thick and heavy, the automatic movement audible and all the stranger for it, and repeat the word; cold and clear this time, almost over-enunciating — 

"Always." 

**

Most of the time, Dom knew where he was. 

He knew what he was being paid to do.

He knew the payment that was being extracted from others, so that he could fulfil his purpose.

Dom was not oblivious. Dom knew what was important. 

What had been important.

What had to stay important.

He knew that Eames had been, was, forever would be, a Psion.

He knew that Eames was Philippa and James's magician, Mal's friend, her long-ago _frère_ , the man who loved to argue with her no matter what guise he wore.

He knew that no matter how long his days of attempting to solve what had been done to Arthur may have been, they would never make any of it right.

Dom Cobb knew who he was.

Lover, father; husband, creator; inventor, leader.

He was all of those things, had been all those things, and now he was a man who conjured up magic from destroyed parts and hoped they were enough to keep buying him and his time.

He was a man with a perm-mod he refused to illuminate.

He was a man who had given Mal, Mal who was all of his lords and lights and stars and ancient, half-spoken deities, the very things that had destroyed her.

And as he had destroyed her, so she now sought to destroy the world.

Perm-mod after perm-mod, made beautiful in their design for her enjoyment, for her delectation. Again and again, creating one more thing, because she had asked.

But never the time-port, never that hideous, orange-glowing jack. He would never study one of those, brought to him from some poor dead relic of the annihilatory battlefields, never reproduce that particular horror.

Not for Mal, he thought, then and now and in days to come, for linearity had stopped existing. Not the abomination of the time-warping soldiers, not for Mal who loved beauty and grace, not for Mal, to be linked irretrievably to the vagaries of time and war.

And in the end, that had been the only thing she truly craved.

The only thing she had despised in him, that he refused to grant it to her.

_"You could do it, Dom,_ mon amant _, you could give me this..."_

The words haunted his sleep, haunted his waking, stole time from him as surely as though he had been Psion-chosen, ripping apart boundaries that should always have been stronger than veils.

He focused.

_Design this,_ they said, and he obeyed. 

And time passed so quickly, so slowly, it hovered around him, beneath him, above him.

He could never remember who he was working for, when he placed the last little gold wire into its connection.

_Mal, Mal, you will love this._

"Good work again, Cobb," said Lukho, and took his creation away.

Ariadne brought him scrap parts, pulled apart and melted down and strung out.

"Can you use these?" she asked.

"How... how long have we been here?" he asked her in return.

"Cycles, revolutions." She shrugged. "Don't worry, Dom. It's fine, you're doing good."

_I have lost time,_ he thought.

He did not care. The only Psion left was Eames, and Eames could have all of that time, if he needed it.

Let Dom go old and grey, let him come to his life's end.

"Barter my soul, barter my time."

He picked up the tiny interface laser, and set to work once more.

Another commission.

_Mal, you will love this, I will make it your star, there is a jewel in this one, see?_

No. No. That was before.

"Dom, you can't give people time by not using it yourself. Please, mate. You've got to look after yourself better, come back to us a little, yeah?"

He tried. He focused on his surroundings, on his hard bed and the too-thin blankets. 

He traded for more, and was rooked, but they all looked so pleased to see him try that it was worth it.

The pipes dripped in a corner of his room. In the sleep-cycles, when the lights darkened, he could see faces there.

He worked with iron and rhodium and silver plated copper now. And there was no-one to love him for it save his own decaying ghost of reality.

_"Do you love me, Dominic?"_

"Better than stars or water," he always replied.

_"And yet you create them for me."_

"Your loving them still doesn't make them better than you..."

He could feel her breath on his neck, the warmth of her skin as it pressed against his.

_"Why don't you use your perm-mod, my darling, hide yourself from where anyone can find you, work in peace?"_

"Dom, what the fuck? Arthur traded you five cred's worth of proper food, what the hell are you trying to do?"

Eames, who would never need another perm-mod.

"Sorry... sorry."

He was so sorry.

"How much time –"

"Ah, Dom, it's not important, you're here now."

Eames, making sure he had more than powerbars and stims and sugar spirits. Eames who sometimes gave him the sleep-syringe, so that he believed in the concept of night and day.

He created.

He built.

_Cher, you must not be so alone._

"You left me," Dom said to his workshop.

The twin suns no longer revolved above his head. Metal and old rust-water and the faint humming of pipes consumed his days – oh and they were days, not cycles.

"How many days?" he asked, surfacing.

"I don't know," Arthur said. "Half a year of shifts, perhaps. I'm trying to keep track."

"I'm working."

"I know. You still have to live, Dom. Eat."

"It's going to be something no-one's seen before."

"I know. Stay alive and show us."

The space-station turned.

_Eat._

_Sleep._

He always listened.

Sometimes, it was Yusuf.

"You need to incorporate this."

_"He will never be your equal,"_ Mal murmured in his peripheral hearing, floating and disconnected at the corners of his weary sight.

"Yes," Dom said. "Yes, I know."

He did not thank Yusuf until three full cycles later, and then it was Eames he was talking to, and Eames who agreed to pass on the message.

Dom lay in his bunk and thought _Mal_ , he got up and washed his face and thought _Philippa_ , he drank what passed for coffee and thought _James_.

He ate. He slept. He started to think of words that were not only about himself.

He thought — _we need more than this, the parts aren't enough._

And the space station turned.

And they were safe.

And he could not be touched. 

He thought — _this time may be passing like nightmare-balances, too swift, too slow, but still it is passing, somehow it is passing, and it is passing me by. I have lost reality, and still I know it has been too long._

And the space station turned.

And Dom created now from nothing more than base metal, and there were no jewels left.

No jewels of the mind, or the heart, or to the touch.

_"I love you,"_ Mal said, and she was happy.

He would never make her beauty again, never hold out his creations in his hands to see her gasp and glow with pleasure.

"Six fucking cycles, Dom, you can't do this!" Arthur yelled, and he gave in.

He slept.

He dreamed.

_"I love you,_ she said, and he wept.

"I have lost you," he said.

Ariadne brought him parts, and asked him questions, and he began to be able to answer them.

Yusuf came to him with problems that were strangely easy to solve, even though he could see all the levels of their complexity, even though those levels absorbed him for days, cycles, shift-cycles, whatever it was he was living out.

And the space station turned. 

And Ariadne kept asking, and he roused himself to answer.

And Yusuf created puzzles of destruction, and between them, they created beauty.

And Arthur, who could see none of it, was the one who came more often. 

And Eames, whose appearance changed so quickly now that it flickered almost fast enough to give glimpses of the time-soldier beneath, came less.

And the space station turned.

_"I love you,"_ Mal whispered, dreaming and awake; working and absorbed. She leant upon his shoulder as he talked with Yusuf; took the direction of his gaze away from desperately-learning Ariadne, wallowed away his hearing from Arthur's friendship.

She absorbed him, obsessed him, possessed him; for she was always there, and time had deserted him.

Arthur, trying to keep him tethered to whatever he could find.

Yusuf, throwing him challenges that were so easily defeated.

Ariadne, who needed him, needed his guidance, needed tuition.

Eames, who had nothing to offer him except sugar-spirits and ink-ash love and a promise.

All of them, waiting for him to return from the depths of his fractured, splintered mind.

And there was nothing he could do to save any of them, nothing he could do to help them, nothing he could find in himself that was of worth except one.

Mal, Mal, Mal.

_"Je vous en prie. Dominic. I love you."_

And the space-station turned.

Cycle after cycle, swallowed in the maw of his despair.

Creator.

Inventor.

Lost.

**

 

**i.{draws all forces inward}**

It was the sort of day that felt as if it should be raining. Of course, on a space-station with a false atmosphere that at best managed the vague impression of a mild and damp day, that should have been impossible, but there it was. It felt grey, cloudy, and there should have been a corresponding downpour. 

At least then Arthur could have been justified in going back to his room, going to bed, and _not coming out_ until the weather improved. With optional covers over his head. And possibly ear-plugs. And the need to draw the curtains because there would be windows, and then he could know that the rain was coming down outside and he wasn't looking at it, and it was entirely possible that he needed coffee _now_. 

Or to kill Yusuf, whose latest temp-mod after-effects seemed to have ensured he had turned into an idiot whose brain was focused on not-looking at non-existent rain.

"This fucking thing is a piece of crap. I'm telling you, Arthur, if the pay wasn't so good I'd tell them they need to just shit-can their entire ship and start over instead of hiring me to fix things." Ariadne tossed the part she was working on down on the table. "Why do I do this? I used to create beautiful things... and now I just fix up all this ugly crap."

There were a lot of very good answers to that, including _because you're the only one who can_ and _because we need the ugly crap_ and _look, you chose to come with us, stop complaining_ , but since Arthur had said all of these things at various times, in different tones of voice, and with infinite variations, he really couldn't be bothered to try again on a day that felt as if it should contain rain. "Yeah," he said instead.

Ariadne glared at him instead of her whatever-it-was. "Wow. Thanks. You should take up motivation as your main profession, seriously."

"Let me have some more coffee first and I'll be a little more motivational." Arthur walked over and refilled his cup. 

"You're beginning to sound like Dom, you know that, right?"

"Oh the horror," said Arthur flatly. It was, actually, a fairly horrific thought, but not really because of the coffee. Just the thought of sounding like Dom, in general, was one to be avoided.

"Coffeeeeeeeee," Ariadne said in sepulchral tones. "Coffeeeeeee. Coffeeeeeee... oh, lords, does anyone else miss real coffee? This so doesn't count." 

"Can someone tell Yusuf that his latest schematics make me think it's supposed to be _raining_?" Eames demanded from the doorway. "Because I think I might kill him slowly for it if I have to talk to him."

"Oh good, it's not just me," Arthur muttered. "No, Eames, I won't. Go find someone else to annoy." 

"Coffeeeeeeee," said Ariadne again, lost in her own special brand of being annoying that was hopefully never to be inhabited by anyone else, and giggled.

"Tea?" Eames said hopefully.

"I turned the kettle on, but tea? You're on your own. You might have to design it from scratch, thinking back, you drank the last ages ago, and we've not traded since." Ari picked up the part she had tossed down on the table earlier and started fiddling with it.

"Ta, love." And there went Eames, not listening to a word anyone said.

"You're welcome." Ari rolled her eyes, and forced a screwdriver under the edge of a restraining ring, then smiled when it finally popped loose. "You do seem a bit... fadey today, Eames. Time for a new mod?"

"Unfortunately." Eames pulled a face that to Arthur just looked stupid, but on whatever holo he was wearing apparently looked repulsively cute, because Ariadne made a sort of _awwww_ noise, and put down her screwdriver to go over and give him a hug. 

Arthur had no idea who she thought she was cuddling. 

He couldn't see holos. He was never going to be _able_ to see holos, thanks to his damaged perm-illuminator, now as much part of him as his nerve-endings and blood, and he regretted its malfunction and its ineradicability more deeply each time everyone else got the benefit of them and he was stuck with seeing Eames be... himself. Because he could see _everything_ that was hidden so very well from the rest of the space station.

Not that looking at Eames was a hardship, he was honest enough with himself to admit that, but sometimes the expressions he made just... well, Arthur would have to assume that they looked more appropriate on the face of the holo than Eames's own. It also made him wonder if that was truly what made Eames so good at what he did, the fact that he didn't rely solely on the modification. 

He had seen more than a few holo-wearers at work before his own modification had malfunctioned, and had often wondered how they fooled anyone; their body language hadn't changed enough to hide the person underneath.

But of course Eames was more than a holo-wearer, he was a holo-master, it was part of his arsenal, not simply his chosen guise — a perm-mod, wired in to be attached whenever needed. 

Eames a master of any craft — it defied belief.

It was oddly disorientating, though, to watch Eames interact with the rest of the world — affected in no small part by the knowledge that while Arthur was one of the very, _very_ few people on the space station who knew what Eames really looked like, he had no earthly idea what Eames _looked like_. 

He could only go by others' reactions, and sometimes they seemed so at odds with what Arthur could see that it had the effect on him of something that felt like nothing less than a giant disconnect with his surroundings.

It didn't help that much as he tried to stay on top of it, Eames had bad days just as the rest of them did now, and on those days he actively _hated_ the fact that Arthur could see what he was really feeling, that there was no way of concealing himself with appearance in front of Arthur's damaged, damnably permanent mod. 

It had led to some incredibly unpleasant exchanges, and even dragged Dom out of his haze of despair and design to shout at them both for what seemed like a very unfair length of time.

"Mmmm..." Eames made an agreeable noise, his head bent into Ariadne's hair. He liked even approximations of physical contact, even when he knew that the person touching him was sensing another body entirely. "Yusuf is working on it." 

Yes, Yusuf would be working on the mod. Yusuf always was working on someone's mod. He supplied temporary modifications for half the base... maybe more like three quarters. He was just that damned good.

"And you're mad at him, so you're not going to see him, and now you look like one of Dom's old shirts, you know, frayed and a bit skanky," Ari supplied, drawing back and pulling at Eames's hand until he followed her over to the workbench. "Kind of self-defeating. Here, hit this."

"I'm not mad at him, I just want to _kill_ him," Eames said sulkily, but he obligingly picked up Ariadne's little hammer and started thumping hell out of the metal disc she pointed at. "He made the _world rain at me_." 

"And everyone else, apparently," Arthur practically had to shout over the noise. That did nothing to improve his mood, but at least Eames seemed to be as out of sorts as he was, and misery just loved company.

"Oh pfft..." Ari wasn't at all sympathetic. "When was the last time either of you even saw real rain? You should be happy about the variation."

"Says the girl not suffering from the side-effects EAMES WILL YOU STOP HITTING THAT FUCKING THING," Arthur said all on one breath.

"She told me to," Eames pointed out, gleefully continuing his percussive assault on the airwaves. Arthur put his head in his hands and groaned.

"I got the one where everything tasted like headache, though," Ariadne pointed out, which was a sentence that made no sense at all in the abstract, but if you had been one of the people enduring that particular fade, was a vivid and unpleasant memory. Yusuf had somehow managed to give it to the entire space-station, which would have been impressive if had hadn't been so utterly horrendous. "Okay, Eames, stop."

"I was enjoying that," Eames said in mild protest. "I was imagining it was Dom's face."

"Not Yusuf's?" Ari teased.

"I keep telling you, I want to _kill_ Yusuf, that's completely different." Eames sat back on the high work-chair and stretched into a kind of yawn that sounded as though something inside him was creaking. "Dom, on the other hand, Dom... hell, I could happily smash this hammer into his stupid face for fucking hours and it wouldn't come close to explaining how annoying he is." 

Arthur felt he should protest this. Unfortunately, the small part of his brain that wasn't currently rain-obsessed was taken up with quiet agreement. Dom was usually easy to deal with by means of ignoring, unrelenting depression and all. Dom on a design tear and raving on about ideas no-one else either understood or wanted to was infuriating.

"What's he obsessing about this week?" Ariadne asked as she picked up the piece that Eames had just pounded into a semblance of what it might have been previously. "I mean when he's not bemoaning Mal's fate."

"Be fair, Ari, Dom has been pretty deva —"

"— devastated, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got the memo." Ari cut him off. "We all know that... and understand it. But it's been over a year now, and he needs to get a hobby, or something. One that doesn't require any of us to be guinea pigs..."

"Not that I'm arguing with the sentiment, love, but be fair," Eames said after an odd little silence in which Arthur tried and failed to think of how not to yell something unforgivable if he opened his mouth. "Dom doesn't test on us. He'll only do that on himself _and_ he'll make sure to run it by Arthur here if — when he gets to that point." He passed the hammer over to Arthur, smiling a little wryly. Arthur wondered what he looked like to Ariadne's curious eyes. "Here. Hit something. Pretend it's us. Or you can come annoy Yusuf with me, that'll help. Rain payback."

Sometimes Arthur really, really wished Eames were a little less perceptive. It wasn't that Ariadne didn't have a perfect right to be exasperated with Dom. It was more that he still felt, even after a year stuck on the damn space-station with Dom's grief and Mal's absence and Yusuf's gleeful experimentation and the total lack of any sort of comfort of any kind, that no-one had a right to say _why_ Dom was so impossible. 

It felt like letting someone else pick at a scab on his arm, an unwarranted and unwanted and painful clawing at healing skin that he should only have been able to inflict upon himself.

**

It was such a beautiful day. His lunch had been a lovely green curry chicken, he had plenty of work to keep him busy through the end of the week, he'd just finished the last touches on a sports modification, and his cat was standing on the counter where he was working, head butting against his wrist in a bid for attention. Any one of those would have kept Yusuf happy for the foreseeable future, but the fact that he got to experience them all at once was just... brilliant! 

If only there were fewer mosquitoes.

Wait.

There shouldn't be mosquitoes. They certainly shouldn't be buzzing in his ear in his workshop. 

That was definitely wrong. Yusuf swatted vaguely at the direction of the whining, and his eye mods were wrenched off him with a complete lack of care — 

"— that this new world of yours is a nice quiet place, Yusuf, because you are about to be dead. Treasure your last moments."

Ah. _This_ workshop. On the space station. Without a cat, without tasty lunches, and unfortunately and definitely and irrefutably, with the pirates-who-weren't-at-all, but were a lot less fun and demanded a lot less story-style pirate-ish things and a lot more hard work; Arthur, who was batshit insane and made _extra_ work for him; and Eames, who was just hard work all round, and also currently glaring at him. 

"Bollocks," he said sadly.

"Yours? In a vice? Can do," Eames said with murderous cheer.

Yusuf cleared his throat, "Eames, my dear friend. How nice to see you. I... hmmmm... your modification is due to be renewed, isn't it? You've begun to fade."

"Oh, yes. All hail the King of Understatement!" Eames growled, "Yes, Yusuf, my modification has begun to fade. How nice of you to notice." 

"Ah. Perhaps if you had come here a little earlier —" 

"Why, did you have the surround sound on at that point?" Eames demanded, waving the eye mods at him threateningly.

"Eames, those are fragile, please do not —"

— throw them at Arthur, how wonderfully kind of him, yes, why did he expect anything else... 

"Those work on you?" Eames asked then, and Yusuf hunched his shoulders in a vague kind of shame, because oh, yes, that had been his original plan, hadn't it, getting something that would override the damage to Arthur's perm-mod, oops... 

"No," Arthur said after a moment in which Yusuf could see both him and Eames not quite successfully not-hoping. "And it's still raining."

"Yeah, noted. Yusuf, you suck."

"But I had such a nice lunch," Yusuf said reminiscently. "It was green curry. Quite delicious."

Arthur stared at him. "Okay," he said slowly, "I want to kill him instead. Sorry, Eames, you just got moved down the hitman list."

"I don't think so, Arthur, but you know we've always worked well as a team." Eames smirked. 

"Gentlemen..." Yusuf began, but instantly realized that he'd get no sympathy there. "Ariadne?"

She had entered right behind the two men and was leaning against his workbench with a wicked smile on her face. Ah, well, at least if he were going to die, he'd have something pretty to look at while it happened.

"I can call someone for clean-up duty when they're done," she said unreassuringly. "Seriously, Yusuf, you made them whine. You know how hard it is to work when they're whining at you."

"Mosquitoes," Yusuf said, nodding as he made the connection. "Yes."

"Ari, love, you need to bugger off," Eames said, ignoring Yusuf.

"Aw, come on, just once —" 

" _No_ ," Eames said with rare force. "We've been over this and —"

"Yeah, but no-one will _tell_ me, come on, Eames, you wouldn't want me to have to spy on you —"

"But you wouldn't break my trust like that, I think," Yusuf interjected before the wheedling could get out of hand. "Not nice, miss. Threatening my workshop with spyware..."

"Saito," Ariadne said, with a gesture to the screen where the station's AI image was watching them in what might even have been partly genuine interest, "likes me better. So I could just ask him to take a picture —"

"I believe I prefer to remain sentient, thank you," said the AI politely. "Though I do, of course, like you best." 

"Of course you do. Everyone does," Ari beamed at the avatar. "Well, everyone but Arthur, but he doesn't like much of anyone so he doesn't count." 

"I like people," Arthur frowned. 

"Yusuf, what have you been doing?" Eames said with mock sadness in his voice. "People will be so angry that I've killed you, I want to be sure that I can, at least, give your replacement something to start working on."

"Too kind," Yusuf murmured. "Ariadne, go away."

"Some people," Arthur amended thoughtfully. "Sometimes. Sometimes I like some people." 

Ariadne's eyes went very wide as she tried not to laugh at that incredibly erroneous statement. Eames looked impossibly happy to hear this, which was another sign that his holo wasn't working very well, because he was almost certainly not on that list and so he shouldn't have looked even remotely pleased, let alone happy. 

Yusuf sighed. "Everyone who isn't me or Eames and can actually see holos," he tried again, "please leave."

"That's just me," Ariadne pouted.

"Why yes, it is," Yusuf agreed in mock surprise. "Oh dear."

"No-one ever lets me have any fun," Ariadne said mournfully, but she at least left, even if it was as slowly as possible and with enough looks backward at them to resemble an owl.

Yusuf waited until the door slid shut behind her before speaking, "As it happens I have your new mod completed, Eames. I finished it last night, but then..."

"You got distracted?" Somehow Eames didn't seem at all placated by anything he was saying.

"By _making the world rain_ ," Arthur agreed venomously.

"You are being stranger than usual today," Yusuf told him. Arthur glared at him.

"World. Raining," he repeated. 

"After-effects," Eames translated.

That would certainly explain why they wanted to kill him, if nothing else. Yusuf's head started to hurt just above his nose.

"Sorry?" he ventured. "And Eames, I am going to disconnect you in ten seconds, so if there's anything I need to know about before the holo drops, tell me now." 

"Like?" Eames's holo looked frighteningly eager. Given that he currently looked like a rather small and scruffy professor, glasses swooping precariously towards the end of his nose, it was a disconcerting effect. Yusuf ignored him.

"Arthur?"

"No, he's fine," Arthur said, from where he was apparently engaged in a game of stare-chicken with the AI. Yusuf wondered wildly who would blink first. 

"Sit down, my friend," Yusuf pointed at the chair. It was always odd working on some of Eames's more drastic holos. This professor, for instance, was a good eight inches shorter — almost as small as Ariadne — and at least, at _least_ thirty pounds lighter than Eames's actual bulky frame. 

A part of him was always worried about accidentally putting one of his client's eyes out or something else that was just as unpleasant. He often wondered how Eames managed to shave in the morning, since the mirror reflected the holo back at him, although if Arthur's running commentary on his appearance was to be believed, he didn't often bother.

"Do I get to know what's next in line?" Eames asked, sitting down obediently.

"It's a surprise," Yusuf said with a faint smirk, because Eames and new holos went together in terms of patience about as well as small children and wrapped presents. "And you are taking at least ten minutes before you put it on — do _not_ argue with me, I have told you before you cannot stop the fade with willpower and it annoys me that you are still trying. Sit still, please. I don't want to sever an ear."

"Lies," Arthur said, still fixed on the AI. "Hideous lies. You have an ear collection, Yusuf, and we all know your only pleasure in life is planning on how to add one of Eames's to it." 

"Not helping, Arthur," Eames said dryly, but he looked a lot less tense, so Yusuf thought that the hideous lying might well be on his part.

"Oh. Would you like me to? Yusuf, just pass me that electronic thing there, we'll wire it into me on a temp mod, and I'll —"

Ah yes, it was Comedy Hour. Oh, the joy that was Yusuf's life.

"I think not." Yusuf interrupted, before things could get out of hand. Well, more out of hand. 

Or maybe _completely_ was the word he wanted.

He adjusted the sonics on the deactivation tool so that they matched the cycle of Eames's hologram and set it to rest where Eames's neck met his collarbone. "This is right?"

"Here..." Eames adjusted it a bit further out. It was standard procedure because Eames could at least feel the proper spot. "'M ready."

"Good," Yusuf depressed the switch and shut down the old modification.

There was always a moment of fascination as the mod shut down, a brief quarter-second where both Eames's own body and the holo interface overlapped and blended, and just as Yusuf was starting to think he understood, he got it, he knew why Eames was the best at this, it was gone, and Yusuf was left with the original, carbon-based lifeform of his friend.

And every time, it was a shock that he had to conceal for fear of causing real offence.

There were _reasons_ Eames didn't like people to see what he really looked like. In a society that prided itself on modifications, on scarless, unblemished, perfect skin and enhanced attraction of every variety imaginable, Eames had chosen to go back to the tradition of what had once been his home planet, and was now simply one of many dead moons. 

He carved what mattered to him into his skin and stamped it there with ink and ground metal and ash, a living memorial to places and people and times that no-one wanted to think about.

Eames wore what he had done and who he had been on his skin, and it was a terrifying sight.

The first time Yusuf had seen him, his whole upbringing had come to the fore in a sudden terrible flood, and he had been repelled with a sickening force that had horrified him even as it took him over.

To his everlasting shame, his first thought had not been anything but the sound of his father's voice, uttering one word, and the word was not one he was ever going to admit to Eames had even crossed his mind.

_Abomination._

On his darker days, he thought Eames knew that all too well, and was never going to forgive him for it.

"You blinked." 

"I did not. Avatars do not need to blink, Arthur, they have no tear ducts and, similarly, no need to moisturize their eyes." 

"You still blinked," Arthur insisted.

Yusuf had the sudden urge to kiss him for breaking the always awkward moment.

"I did not blink —" Arthur had the superhuman ability to actually _annoy_ the AI. It was kind of awesome.

"Yeah, you did." Arthur folded his arms and looked smug. The AI scowled, then rather obviously changed the subject.

"Mr. Eames. Good to see you again."

"Hey, Saito." Eames waved at the AI. "How's life?"

"Filled with beautiful women, good liquor, expensive carpeting, and of course gold bathtubs," the AI responded. Yusuf grinned, and shook his head. The established pretence that when Eames took back his own appearance he was just coming into the room was something that had developed between him and the AI, wasn't a joke that anyone else was allowed to share in, and freaked everyone out completely on a daily basis, particularly at times such as the period when Saito had insisted to everyone that he had not seen Eames for over a week and was concerned as to his well-being.

"Excellent, well done you," Eames said, and got up out of the chair, shaking himself as though he had been unexpectedly doused in water. "Urgh. That fade was shite, Yusuf."

"Because you left it too long," Yusuf said, aiming for patience. "I have told you —"

"Yeah, yeah," Eames said, dismissing his complaints somewhat exasperatedly. To be fair, Yusuf thought, he had heard them before. "Hey, Arthur, did you —"

Arthur's smile could only be described as self-congratulatory. It made Yusuf mildly afraid. "I did."

"You _star_ ," said Eames, and grinned.

"Excuse me?" said Yusuf. 

"I get to use your _shower_ ," Eames said in tones of a man who was about to experience rapture of a kind usually only provided by extremely good drugs.

"No you don't, I need the rations —"

"Bought 'em, stole 'em, got Arthur to trick Dom out of his," Eames cut across him.

"Self-defence, you reek," Arthur said calmly, but he was still smiling.

"You're no violet yourself," Eames snorted. "You want to join me?" 

Arthur just waved a vague hand and went back to staring at Saito.

Yusuf sighed with relief. Someday Arthur would take Eames up on one of his off-hand offers and then? Yusuf had a feeling that his water ration would be the least of his worries. 

"Yusuf?" Arthur said, as soon as Eames was safely out of the room and they could hear Yusuf's shower spluttering into pained life.

"Mm-hm?" Yusuf asked, not really interested and checking over the new mod one last time.

"You know he forgave you ages ago, don't you," Arthur said, and it was a statement, not a question. Yusuf let out a breath he hadn't even realised he had been holding somewhere inside him since before Mal's defection to Cobol and her descent into mod-induced madness, before Dom's wilderness of grief, before their flight from the city-planets to the space station, here in the middle of the unclaimed territory that was Sector 9. 

"I do now," he said honestly, and looked up, ready to thank Arthur from the bottom of his soul. But Arthur was back to staring at Saito, and the AI was busy appearing bored.

"Thanks," Yusuf whispered anyway.

**

Eames hadn't quite used up all of Yusuf's water rations, but it had been a close thing. It didn't really matter, Yusuf would just take his next payment in water instead of money. Most of his clientele were fairly willing to bargain on the terms.

He ran a towel over himself, wiping away the remaining dampness and then tying it loosely around his hips. His near nudity would frazzle Arthur, but that was the whole point, wasn't it? It kept the other man on his toes, kept Eames from seeming predictable, and really, did his ego nothing but good when he caught Arthur pretending not to stare.

It hadn't always been that way though. Early on, he'd thought Arthur was avoiding the sight of him because of the tattoos. He'd been rather angry and a bit disappointed and had taken it out on him with all due violence... even if it was verbal rather than physical. After they'd gotten to know each other though, he came to realize that Arthur didn't care about the tattoos, but rather had been trying to give Eames the privacy that he himself would have wanted. 

Arthur couldn't help seeing him, and felt personally offended that not only was he not given a choice any more, but he had ended up forcibly removing the holo-wearers' choices from them as well.

Especially those who, like Eames, had the holo-mod put in as their permanent mod, whose entire existence was designed so that there was nothing else they would ever be asked for. Arthur, with his malfunctioning holo-eraser that left him reliant on _only_ temp mods, who worked his entire time towards not being seen as a liability and had to make the one thing he hated most about himself into his greatest asset, lived in a state of permanent _offense_ with the world, rather than permanent modification. 

Knowing that the one time he would have really liked to be able to give someone else an option as well as himself was also the one time he was never, ever going to be able to had made him downright rude — before Eames figured out it was terminal fury at circumstance and fate that was causing his odd behaviour, and immediately put his not inconsiderable talents at smoothing things over towards getting the stupid situation sorted out.

"It's like visual rape," Arthur had said after one of Dom's more successful ops, back when they still lived on the city-planet, and people wanted to hire them because they were the best, rather than the only available option. He had been very, very drunk and hopped up on something Yusuf had designed to make his skin close to impermeable, which was wearing off with an effect akin to old-fashioned truth-drugs. "Do you have any idea how sick that makes me? Every day, I'm this —"

"Yeah, thing about that is, how it's not if someone says yes," Eames had pointed out, interrupting him before Arthur could go any further down the never-ending route of self-blame, and left it there, because even piss-drunk and probably hallucinating pink gerbils or whatever it was he kept staring at off in the corner, Arthur was more than capable of assimiliating the important stuff if you left him alone and gave him space to get over his stupid honourable city-born self and his ridiculous sense of ethics.

And it had worked, because Arthur had stopped avoiding him, after that. 

Later on, the other part of their odd arrangement of courteous evasion had begun, the part that neither of them really liked to discuss, and had managed not to except for the first time it happened and Eames had tried to explain, and Arthur, because he was that sort of irritating man, had been more than ready to assume he was being insulted as opposed to being asked a favour.

It had been really fucking embarrassing all round.

"You want me to _what_?" Arthur had demanded.

"Just — touch me. Sometimes." Eames had gone incredibly red, and it was mostly from the way he knew this could be misinterpreted. Because, no, not that he would be averse to having sex with someone who actually knew who they were shagging, but stars above, he would have made his proposition a damn sight smoother than this, if that had been what he wanted, thank you so much. "I don't mean — I just want —"

"Words, Eames," Arthur had sighed, but at least he no longer looked ready to lock Eames in and yell for a guard.

"You can't see the holos, yeah? Can you feel them, the way everyone else can?"

"No," Arthur had said snappishly.

"But, see, if you put your hand on my shoulder, if you — you'd — but everyone else —"

Arthur was already nodding. "They'd just see me with your holo. And they do that all the time."

"Yeah, except —"

"It would be you. Would it help? Or — distract?"

Practical Arthur, sifting out plans from idiocy even in the midst of his own disconcertment.

"Help," Eames admitted. "It would fucking help. So much. Arthur, you have no idea what it's like to never —"

"Yeah," Arthur had said, and he had _got it_ , all of it, every miserable permutation, what this permanent mod had done to Eames. He had got it because his was damaged, too damaged to repair, too damaged to remove because it was melded to him too closely. 

Arthur's sight would never be able to stop looking past holos, his body would never be tricked by the wave-warps that should have made him believe an entirely different person stood in front of him. And Eames, because of what his real body looked like to eyes of people like Yusuf (and oh, how that initial rejection had stung, how much it still stung at times), was just as trapped, just as stuck, just as caged. "Okay," he had said then, and smiled. "No problem." 

He had kept to his word then, back on the city-planet where only Eames was hiding, and still kept it now, out here on the rusting space-station where no-one should have been able to trust each other. He was the one person Eames could rely on at any time, and the oddest thing?

The oddest thing was that because to Arthur he could never and would never, as long as that damned broken mod ruled his body, change, he was Arthur's constant too. 

"Ack! Eames! My eyes..." Arthur could joke about it now, tease Eames about his nakedness and not worry that Eames would be insulted. 

Of course, that was a two-way street, because the more Arthur teased, the more comfortable Eames felt to tease back.

He dropped his towel. 

"Eames! Really..." The tips of Arthur's ears turned pink and Eames chuckled as he tugged his pants back on.

"You love looking at me, Arthur. It's okay to admit it."

"Yeah, just like I loved that flu germ Ari caught three months ago that the lab wanted to study. So pretty to look at. In a lab, under lights, all laid out in neat little dishes."

"You want to dissect me? Kinky..." 

Yusuf sighed from somewhere behind them. "When you're done flirting, if you ever feel like stopping, oh have pity on my virgin ears, etcetera, etcetera, blahblah and so forth, I have the new mod ready, Eames."

There was a time when Eames might have denied that what he and Arthur were doing was flirting, but lately, he wasn't so sure. "Jealous, mate?"

"Burning with it. Along with irritation at your timewasting, shower-stealing ways. Now make sure there is no water anywhere near your mod-connector, if you please."

With a put-upon sigh, Eames did as he was told. "Dry enough for you, o Great One?"

"You recognise my standing at last, very kind of you," Yusuf said with a nod.

The holo mods always hurt a little when they first went on, as if they were trying to get Eames to dissolve his real body into a new shape, and this time was no exception.

"Shit! That fuckin' hurts, you bastard!" Eames grabbed at his shoulder, suddenly very mindful of Arthur's hand appearing on his bare arm, and resisting with a fair amount of difficulty the impulse to clutch at that, instead. "Yusuf, you fucker, I swear you do that on purpose."

"Eames, you know that's just a —"

"Yeah, yeah... 'a manifestation of the harmonics of the hologram pressers'. You've fucking told me that every damn time, but somehow it doesn't help. Shit." 

But the feel of Arthur's hand was soothing the pain away, although all it was doing was resting there. "Don't be such a baby."

"Piss off," said Eames ungratefully, and was relieved when Arthur did no such thing. "Fuck. Ah. Okay. Okay. Sorry, Yusuf. How do I look?"

"Horrible," Arthur said immediately. "What, you couldn't _shave_ , with all that perfectly good hot water?" He patted Eames's arm once more, and moved away.

"You look wonderful, and I am a genius," Yusuf said happily.

"Mirror?" Eames suggested.

"No need," said Saito's smug voice, and the AI screen brought up a brief five-second convert-vid, the kind Mal had used on him in the time before — in the time before. Eames glanced at it, decided the woman was more than acceptable and showed damn good taste on Yusuf's part, and then found his attention wholly absorbed by Arthur instead, who was staring at the screen with his mouth slightly open.

"You can see her," Eames realised. "Holy fuck, Arthur, you can see her. Yusuf, how — not even Mal could —"

"Because I am a genius," Yusuf said smugly, and then, "Also, Saito thought of it. I just — tweaked."

"She's lovely." Arthur said quietly.

Eames considered himself rather an expert, after all these years, of reading what Arthur really meant. "It doesn't matter, does it? She could look like three day old runover bread and you'd still think I... I mean she, she was lovely." 

It got so easy for him to mix up his pronouns when Arthur was staring at his image.

"No, I'd be too busy panicking, if that was a holo of three day old runover bread, and probably wondering why the fuck Yusuf was on the hallucinogens again," Arthur said, not looking away from the looping convert-vid.

"We're going to get it so it runs longer than this," Yusuf said, "but I thought you'd want —"

"Yeah," Arthur said quietly, and then gave himself an almost visible mental shake. "Well, at least this time I won't be so confused by the inevitable reaction of just about all the pilots." He took a deep breath, and turned away from the screen. 

"Hi," Eames said. He sounded almost uncertain in his own ears, but that could have been the higher tone of his voice, and trying to accustom himself to it.

"Three day old bread?" was all Arthur said. "Generous assessment, Eames."

"Run over, too," Eames pointed out.

Arthur made a see-sawing gesture with his hand. "Mm-nn, no. Just the mouldy bread."

"I'm not though... mouldy. I took a shower." He nodded and then winked at Arthur. 

"Very good, you noticed. Did you clean behind your ears? In your navel?" Arthur asked dryly. 

"'Course I did." Eames nodded. "Used up all of Yusuf's water too."

The whimpering behind them was loud enough to be amusing. The corners of Arthur's eyes creased in his usual secretive little smile.

"You should inform Ariadne that you are finished," Saito said, more stiff than ever. Apparently Arthur's perpetual staring had finally got to him. "Or she will be unforgiving."

Well. True enough.

"Yeah, we can go and bum more coffee off her, and Yusuf, don't look like that, it's the weird frozen crystal stuff, you hate it."

"But I do like Ariadne's workshop," Yusuf said wistfully.

"And Ariadne," said Arthur in the same tones, mocking him. 

For a moment Eames considered just laughing and walking away with Arthur. Of course, if Yusuf came along, he'd try to annex all of Ari's attention... then Eames could have coffee and some of Arthur's time to himself. They were both so busy lately that having time to spend with a friend was a definite luxury. 

"Alright. You can come." He poked his finger straight towards the middle of Yusuf's face. "But no whining, and you owe me two more water credits..."

"How does this always happen to me?" Yusuf asked the uncaring pipes that ran along the ceiling. "I make you a beautiful, beautiful holo, I set it up so Arthur can see the glory that is holo-you today, and I still get robbed. So unfair."

"You made the world rain in my head, you deserve it," Arthur said, which satisfyingly shut Yusuf up. But it wasn't that which made Eames smile as they went out.

It was Arthur's brief touch to his back, right over the sigils that lineated Mal's loss. 

_I can still see you, and you're here,_ the brushing warmth said, and a little of the tension left Eames's shoulders.

"Tell Eames goodbye for me if you see him," Saito said as they closed the door, and Eames knew that he wasn't imagining the slight sadness in the AI's voice.

**

Arthur was definitely, positively, absolutely certain that once they left the space station he never wanted to think about his time there. 

That thought flowed through his head with a clarity that he would never, previously, have ascribed to it. 

His own work was incredibly boring, since Lukho had too much of an ego to listen to any of Arthur's ideas, even though they were often far more sound than Lukho's own — and that was fine by him, especially as Lukho would be the one who lost money in the long run.

It was Lukho's hold on Eames that put Arthur in such a state of denial, the way that whatever he had Eames doing for him dragged the holo-master out in the middle of his sleep cycle, often more than once, and some of the things he had Eames doing had to be horrible.

Not that Eames said so... or complained... or alluded to them in any way. But Arthur could see the stress in Eames's eyes, the way they avoided looking at him on some days, the way the skin around them darkened and wrinkled with stress and worry. More than once the look in Eames's eyes had made Arthur want to go punch Lukho in the face, and he had no definite reason why.

"I don't kill people and I don't harm children," Eames had said once, in the worst attempt at reassurance Arthur had ever got from him. "So it's all fine."

"That's your deal? That's _it_? Lukho's moral code is _fucked_ ," Arthur had said wearily, and Eames had shrugged.

"All of ours is, now."

Which, was, of course, true. But it didn't stop Arthur worrying over just what kind of things _weren't_ covered under those two headings.

It really didn't stop him worrying now that he'd seen the kind of holo Yusuf was designing. Or how hard Eames had tried to avoid getting this particular one, rather than the lovely woman he'd been wearing before.

The new one was young, about twenty-two Gate-Planet revolutions. It was a male with slicked back hair, and a slender wiry frame, but strong looking for all of that. Or at least that was Ariadne's description.

"Lords, Arthur, he looks like you. He could be your brother."

"Oh." Well, that explained some of the avoidance at least.

"Yeah, he's been on at Yusuf for temps that make him look like he's related to us, not sure why." Ariadne picked up something that looked like a plug, and almost certainly wasn't, and scowled down at it.

She was obviously uncomfortable, and equally obviously unwilling to say anything.

"Ari —"

"I'm good at trading," she said abruptly. "You know it. I know it. Even Dom surfaces enough to know it. So why won't Eames let me?"

Arthur blinked. "He does, what? You traded last time the salvagers —"

"Yeah, that kind of trading, I know. But — day-to-day stuff. At the docks. Why won't he let me do that?"

"I'm sure he has his reasons, Ari. Eames knows this place far better than we do. You'll just have to trust his judgement." Arthur put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Eames always does things for a good reason."

Just what those reasons might be was something that kept Arthur awake during half his sleepshift-cycles. He knew that Lukho hired Eames out to other Captains, other spacers, but he couldn't get Eames to tell him exactly what he was doing.

"I trust his judgement," Ariadne said quickly. "I wouldn't be alive if I didn't, if I hadn't, I know that. But I don't trust Lukho. And Yusuf's — worried. Or something. And none of you will tell me what's going on."

"Because we can't," Arthur said, feeling very tired indeed. "Eames could, and he's decided not. He doesn't tell us, he doesn't even tell Yusuf, I wish he _would_ , but he doesn't. Ari — he made the deal that keeps us here. Let's not make it harder on him than we have to."

"Dom knows what he looks like, doesn't he?" Ariadne asked abruptly. "Dom, Saito — so it's just me. Me and the station. I'm not sure I like being classed with them."

"You're not, but — yeah."

" _Why_?"

"That's Eames's story to tell, Ari. If I told you why, it would explain why not... and it might be harder for you to take than his stubbornness about letting you go trade at the docks." Arthur answered. "But you're right about not trusting Lukho."

And he might just have to pin Eames down. The idea of them bartering Eames's life against their own was making his stomach turn.

Ariadne rolled her eyes in overdone exasperation. "Give me a break," she said. "Any guy who wears that much jewellery? He's _really_ overcompensating for what he hasn't got. Like taste."

Sometimes, Arthur thought he might well love her, that he could see in her whatever it was that enthralled Yusuf, even if it didn't have the same effect on him.

Other times, he was just glad that there was someone left in the world with the power to make him laugh.

**

But Ariadne also made him think, almost too much at times. They had all been so grateful at first, to have a place to rest. A place for Dom to heal, for them all to be able to wash the blood and fear sweat away; a place where they could simply be and live and forget, at least for the moment, that there ever was a Mal or a Cobol or a City Planet that they could no longer return to. 

But what was the price?

For the rest of them, not so much, as they were all doing things that they would have probably been doing anyway. Well, maybe Ari's would have been a bit more artistic and frivolous, but it was still basically the same.

It was only Eames, the man who could be every man, or woman, and make them all believable, that had been tossed to the wolves.

Eames, who thought he should be dead, along with the rest of the Psion-Corps, and could never be made to see that being alive meant you had to stick to _those_ rules, as well, and actually live.

For once, Arthur decided that perhaps it was time he should be the one waiting at the docking bay for someone to come back.

It confirmed his worst fears, but at the same time it only added to the respect he felt for Eames. Respect at how far the man would go, what he was willing to do for those he considered to be his family. It made Arthur feel honoured that he was included in that family.

And it almost got him killed.

He watched the transport dock and its doors open. A large man came out, his hand latched tight on Eames's shoulder. Arthur thought at first that Eames was drunk and that the man was helping him stagger down the ramp. He thought so right until they reached the bottom and the man shifted his grip to Eames's hair, forcing him down on to his knees.

"So pretty," the man looked down at Eames, "so, so pretty when you beg. Tell Lukho the deal is made."

Arthur would have kept his mouth shut. He would have stayed where he was.

Except he kept hearing Ariadne's voice.

_He looks like you. He could be your brother._

_He's been on at Yusuf for temps that make him look like he's related to us._

_Why won't he let me trade at the docks?_

Arthur was going to kill Lukho. He was going to kill Lukho after he'd kicked Eames's teeth down his throat for being such an idiotic specimen of existence who thought anyone, _any one_ of them needed that degree of protection.

After, that was, he'd killed the space-trader.

The space-trader who was currently bending Eames even lower, tugging him by his hair until he heard Eames's cracked voice, "Please... please no... ."

"So so, pretty," the man repeated again, then backhanded Eames across the face and shoved him away with a cruel laugh.

That was it. Arthur came charging across the deck , seeing nothing but red and the so wrong, so very wrong sight of Eames weeping on the ground.

Later, it would occur to him that using his remaining brain-cells at that point would have been a very good start to a plan that was only going to go downhill. At least then he could have said 'hey, it was working at first!'.

Unfortunately, blind fury didn't seem to be the time when he was capable of reminding himself _just why_ Eames was a holo-master and not an ordinary mod-user.

Or, in fact, why it was really fucking stupid to go up against someone with a laser gun when you'd left yours in your quarters. As he had done, in order to get easy access to the docking bay and not need to waste time getting a weapons pass through to the Crafts Sector.

"You!" Arthur shoved the man away from Eames and would have knelt down to help him except for the fact that he found, all too quickly, exactly what brand of laser gun the space trader used. Found out all too quickly and uncomfortably, because the damned thing was almost instantly shoved under his nose. He decided to ignore it for the moment and looked down at Eames instead. "Are you alright?"

"You might want to pay more attention to the man with the laser," the spacer remarked. "What the fuck is this all about?"

"What do you think—" Arthur began, but was instantly cut off.

"He's just a bit put out," Eames interrupted, moving close enough to touch the spacer. He ran one hand up the inseam of the man's trousers, and rubbed his face against his fabric covered thigh.

The spacer was momentarily distracted, but his laser never wavered. "Put out?"

Eames shrugged. "Older brother?" he said, apologetically.

"Ouch," said the spacer. The gun went down. "Man. I don't envy you. He's fucking nuts."

"Yeah," Eames said a bit grimly. "Tell me about it."

Arthur winced.

"Yeah, fuck, Lukho said keep it off the station — fuck." The spacer had the audacity to look worried. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah... we were just a bit late and he hasn't had his meds today."

"My what—?" Arthur looked down at where Eames was leaning against the other man, still rubbing his cheek against his trousers.

"You sure you'll be okay if I leave you with him?" the spacer asked.

"Yeah... he's crazy but he's never hurt me, not even for fun." Eames winked up at the spacer, who laughed, holstered his laser, and pulled Eames to his feet.

"Okay, kid," the man tugged him close and kissed him, hot and nasty, before letting him go. "I'll see you again, maybe, next trip."

"That's up to Lukho." Eames shrugged, and moved to wrap his arms around Arthur now, almost petting him. Or at least that was probably what it looked like. It felt more like being held by a very unfriendly set of sentient iron clamps.

"Fuck," the spacer suddenly went a bit vague and starey. "Think if I give Lukho a good enough deal I could get both of you?"

" _No_ ," said Arthur viciously.

"Right," said the spacer, blinking a bit. "Just —"

"Thoughts to keep you warm," Eames said, and got a surprisingly nice smile in return.

"Yeah, they'll do that all right. Go on now, boy. Get yourselves out of here."

"Will do," Eames replied, still holding Arthur in a deceptively firm grip."Safe journey, Maf."

The spacer just waved absently, already heading back up the ramp.

"Don't say a word," Eames hissed into his ear, "just walk calmly and slowly back towards the hatchway."

"Eames, are you fuc—"

"Not a word, I said."

Arthur, displaying what he recognised was an attack of common sense for the first time since he'd decided to go to the docks, closed his mouth firmly and did what he was told.

He had a vague idea that the teeth-kicking process was not exactly going to go as he'd planned.

In fact, he managed to keep his mouth shut all the way to the relative privacy of Eames's quarters, even waiting until the door was closed before he spoke, "Do you mind telling me what the fuck that was all about?"

"Yes, honestly, I do mind," Eames answered. "That was a job, Arthur. Not as pleasant as some, but much better than others because at least Maf knows it's all pretend."

"Except for the bit where he doesn't know you're a _holo_!" Arthur yelled, never one to take embarrassed defeat gracefully, and then realised just how damned stupid that sentence had been when Eames got in his face and snarled —

"I am not a fucking holo, you arrogant little shit, where do you get off on —"

"That _he_ was with a holo!" Arthur cut him off. "Fuck, Eames, you know that's not what I —"

"Yeah? Do I? Well if it's not, watch your mouth."

Arthur took a very deep breath, and tried to think of what words he actually wanted Eames to hear before he said anything else. "I just meant," he gritted out, "that your friend Maf isn't exactly someone that —"

"Maf wanted a whore, he wanted to play, he wanted tears and he wanted weakness and he wanted someone who could deal after, and he got what he paid for."

"What did he —"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Arthur, you don't want to finish whatever that question's going to be."

"He wanted a fake. He wanted you to pretend. But not a holo. And you could give him —"

"The fake. Yeah. _Now_ do you get it?"

"Yes. No... I — why do you look like me, Eames?"

"I don—"

"Ariadne told me. She said you looked enough like me to be my brother." And he wanted to know why. Was that how Eames saw him? Weak, underneath it all, waiting for someone else to take charge?

Eames paced over to the other side of the room, his back to Arthur. "It's Lukho's way of keeping me in control."

"What?"

"He thinks if I use your face, or Ari's face, I'll remember why the fuck I'm doing all his fucking jobs. What I'm protecting. What could happen if I forget."

"So you make them look like us but not quite like us." Arthur got it. He was pretty sure Yusuf had got it some time ago. "I'm going to kill him."

"Do you _want_ to be the one running this fucking place?" Eames demanded. "Because that's what you're signing up for, if you take out Lukho. Why the sodding hell do you think _I_ haven't done it yet?"

And Arthur... really hadn't thought of that.

"No," he said slowly. "But fuck. We have got to get out of here."

Eames just looked at him. "Arthur. Where've you got your head, these days? We've nowhere else to go."

And that hurt. That hurt more than anything else that had happened in the whole horrible cycle. It hurt because it was the first completely true thing that had been said, the first thing that wasn't arguable.

"Just tell me," he said, giving up on murderous intent for desperation and returned honesty, "tell me he can't get past the holos. Tell me none of them can."

"Nah." Eames grinned at him. "I'm too good for that."

He was too good, Arthur agreed. 

Too good to let them through. 

Too good to keep being Lukho's toy. 

He'd talk to Dom in the morning. There had to be something else, something they could do, somewhere else they could go. Somewhere safe and hidden. There had to be.

**

**ii. {the struggle of darkness against darkness}**

"This... this is the place," Dom spoke, then closed his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts. "Planetoid AR-724... previously owned by the Fischer Corporation, but now they've gone, it's open for salvage."

There was a small groan from someone in the room, but it was quickly stifled.

"Look, I know... know it's not much, but it will give us funding to build up to something better," Dom justified. "I know we can't get fa... far on what Ari is bringing in for repairs and just piecemeal everything else... and this is —"

"It's alright, Dom." Arthur's quiet voice interrupted. "We know why we're taking crap jobs and we all know they're necessary... it just doesn't make them any less crap."

"Yes, well... it won't always be like this."

"It doesn't have to be like this now," Eames said from behind the face of a 19 year old boy who looked, oddly, a bit like a male Ariadne. It was almost disturbing, but it was a damn sight less distracting than the slightly-twisted and much-younger Arthur from a few days ago had been. 

Ariadne was ecstatic about it, which really _was_ disturbing, and also not something Dom wanted to think about all that carefully. 

"Eames?" Arthur's voice was questioning as his eyes searched Eames's face. "You know something about this place, don't you? You've been there before?"

"I was there, didn't like it, things went tits-up for me. So I left, came here, got patched, went back, job had gone south." Dom had no idea what Eames's expression really was, but his holo was not exactly inviting further questions. 

Arthur just did his impression of an impatient statue. It was almost funny. "Eames..."

"Yeah, stuff's still there, or should be," Eames said grudgingly.

Dom sighed. Sometimes he really wished the pair of them had conversations that, say, _included everyone else in the room_. He knew that half the time they were unaware of what they were doing — even without Arthur's ability to see more than anyone else of what Eames was really thinking, they both had the weird ex-military code going on, and tended to forget that no-one else did — but it could still be completely infuriating. "Wonderful. So how is this not going to be crap, again?"

"Because there's a _lot_ of stuff there?" Eames said a bit more cheerfully.

"Hooray, stuff," was Yusuf's contribution. Dom rolled his eyes to the pipe-laden ceiling. He was grateful to them. He was. He reminded himself of that daily.

He just sometimes wanted to take a laser gun and modify their _brains_.

"So... what are you saying, Eames? And try saying it in Standard this time?" _Please? For the benefit of those of us here who don't seem to have a mod wired into your head_?

"I'm saying," Eames began, speaking slowly and with exaggerated pronunciation, "that there is a lot of stuff there that the Fischer Corporation didn't know about, and couldn't have even before Cobol got them thrown out of nearly everywhere, or they wouldn't have left the place open to general salvage."

"What kind of stuff?" Dom asked.

"Like experimental software. Like research notes on new and safer types of modification." The young man that was currently Eames smiled brightly. And falsely. And slightly frighteningly. 

"Really, Eames?" Arthur sounded sceptical. "All that, and Fischer just pulled out and what — doesn't remember it?"

"That's the thing," Eames continued. "It wasn't a sanctioned lab. The Corporation didn't even know it was there." 

"So how come you do?" That was Ariadne. Of course it was Ariadne. Dom closed his eyes, counted to ten, counted to ten again backwards, and managed somehow not to snarl before he looked at her.

_The only one of us guaranteed to make Eames shut down as though he's a fucking avatar, the only one of us he's never going to let in on who he really is, and she has to talk now..._

When he opened his eyes again, Ari just looked confused. Yusuf was patting her hand, which probably wasn't helping, and Arthur looked utterly livid, which considering that he was the only person there able to see what Eames's actual expression currently was, made more sense than Dom would have liked.

"Worked with 'em, for a bit, then, yeah, had to, y'know, against 'em," Eames was slipping again, in and out of the old form of Onyx-speech that he talked with the salvagers. Dom resisted the urge to curse. Eames putting on another level _again_ of cover was usually a very bad sign. When it was the one which involved 'you don't want to listen to me because I hang out with space-dregs', it was a hint that he was about to make himself completely unhelpful and thereby useless, and Dom didn't feel like dealing with that. 

" _Eames_." Arthur was tapping his shoulder, or at least the holo's shoulder. Fuck knew what he was really doing. "Hey. Focus."

"Yeah, I'm... right..." Eames muttered, a scowl on the youthful face, brown curls falling forward as he stared down at his own feet.

"You worked with them and then couldn't any more," Arthur repeated. "Was this before or after the place was closed down by Fischer?"

"Before." 

Dom stepped a bit closer, "So you worked for the guys in the lab... or for the Fischer Corporation?"

"No, not them, the Corps," Eames said, and fuck, fuck, fucking _fuck_ , not the Corporation, the Corps, the goddamn Corps, the Psion-Corps, of course he had, Dom _knew_ he had, what the hell had he been thinking, pursuing this one?

Sometimes, Dom wondered how he managed to be so _stupid_ and yet survive it, when it came to dealing with his team.

The wiped-out, long dead Psion-Corps, the time-soldiers, the ones people like Yusuf and his family had called 'abominations'. Tattooed with ash and ink, just like Eames was, because they _were_ just what Eames was, and yeah, talk about things Dom didn't want to deal with... 

Ariadne was pale, but listening, and paying far too much attention. Yusuf looked as though he was playing a mental game of 'anywhere but here', and Dom wished briefly and furiously that he could join in. 

"Woah, hey, you were with them? You worked with them?" Ariadne, wide-eyed and insatiably curious, and not for the first time, Dom wished she weren't so damned good at mending everything that came her way, that she weren't so incredibly, horribly valuable, because he sometimes thought that otherwise, he could have thrown her out of a space-lock long ago and claimed insanity. People would have believed him. "Are you, um, still, can you still —"

"So, the guys in the lab, mainly," Arthur said briskly, cutting across her question, and Dom took a moment to genuinely thank every star in the universe for the fact he existed. "Okay. Did they leave trackers?"

"Don't think so..." _Oh thank you, normal words_ , Dom thought, and then Eames's young-looking face went blank, and Dom knew that the reprieve had been short-lived, because he didn't want to be comprehensible and he didn't want to make this easy on them, and so he wasn't going to, because he was Eames and he couldn't possibly make sure a simple fucking briefing went according to plan, could he? "Dunno." Eames shook his head, dark eyes blank and expressionless. He no longer resembled Ariadne at all. "They was out quick. Got out before. Anyways, blown up, right, 's why it's only up for salvage now, we were gone."

"Huh?" Ariadne was well and truly confused now. "What, they blew it up after they left?"

"Ariadne, please shut up," Arthur said quietly.

"No, no, see, we. Lab people, the non-Psi lot, they got, we got, they were out, yeah. An' I was out. Was here. Gettin' patched, an' the Corps, they came, the City-Corps. Wouldn't've. Mean, yeah, I would've, but. When's th'festival again, Yusuf?" 

"Fuck you," Yusuf said calmly. "I don't celebrate it, I have not done so for years, you know that."

"Should. Y'won."

"Eames," Yusuf said helplessly, holding up his hands, and then, "Please, my friend, not now," and Arthur said to them both, " _Enough_. Dom? Does this change anything?"

Dom nodded, pretending to be utterly unfazed by any of this. "Salvage contract says there might be some 'hot' areas left, not radiation, but trapped chem and the like. We'll have to take precautions. Is there a chance that the lab is still intact, Eames?"

"'S why I said." Eames growled. "Woulda kept shut otherwise."

"Unless you want to me to design my own translation-patch and fit it to you until it decays," Arthur said dryly, "you're going to have to say that again in Standard for the benefit of those of us who aren't _you_." 

"Yes. It. Is." Eames bit out, and shut up completely.

"Thank you, next time try saying that," Arthur grumbled as Eames stalked off, flipping him both middle fingers of both hands behind his back, and refusing to look around at any of them as he left.

"Well," Yusuf said brightly, once the door closed. "Great success there, good job, Dominic, well done, Ari, can we please never do this again?"

They all trailed off into the never-ending desultory wrangling that consisted of Arthur trying to hash a plan together, Yusuf trying to apologise for the fact Eames existed, and Ariadne not understanding what was wrong with people in general and them in particular. 

Dom just ignored it as best he could, trusting Arthur to drag some kind of sense out of the whole mess, and stared at the door, long after it had closed behind Eames, letting everyone else's voices drift over and around him. He never saw the 'real' Eames, not now, and had only truly seen him once, in spite of their long term on again, off again association.

It was a memory that still ached — ached all the more for being recent.

All the more for being one of the last things Mal had bequeathed to him. Mal, who had never seen Eames, and now never would, who would never know that in the end, she had been right, and Eames had found that Dom was worth trusting.

Had she always known that it would be Dom, in the end, who would gain that trust? That Eames would never have let her see who he really was? 

Had she been too busy disguising herself, even then? 

"I didn't know her at all," he said to the backs of his hands. "Even when she was right."

He knew how the others would be looking at him now, the odd combination of pity and faint disgust and bewilderment. He had seen it too many times to even need to look up and find it there waiting for him.

It was the one thing Eames never inflicted on him, not from a single one of his holos, not even on the night they arrived at the station, and he came to Dom's room with the knives and the pots of ash and ink-powder and the bottle of raw sugar-spirits.

Yusuf had been with him, and Arthur, but Yusuf had only stayed long enough to short out the temp-mod that Eames had been wearing that night, not even looking at his true face before scurrying out of the room like someone who very urgently wanted to be some place else. It hadn't taken long to figure out why Yusuf's reaction had been so atypical, just long enough for Eames to strip off his shirt, show the tattoos. 

The Psions were supposed to be dead. All of them. Yusuf would have known that, would have already experienced Dom's shock.

Yusuf, who would have been celebrating, not so long ago, the destruction of the Psions. Whose family would have been among those who had bought and paid for men like Arthur, who had hired the damn _City-Corps_ to bring about that destruction.

How long had Yusuf known who and what his friend was? How long had it been before their friendship had become real?

Arthur would have _always_ known, always seen. Had it been guilt, then, that made him bring Eames in, years ago?

Dom had never cared much for the myths surrounding the dead Corps, had never believed the stories of the men made monsters by carving out time as a weapon to their hand.

But seeing Eames then, he had felt the old fear that came from imagination, the cold dread that lay in the dark of lacking knowledge, lacking proof.

And proof had been there, proof in the form of a man who had saved him, and wore the marks of the time-soldiers — so many marks that Dom could hardly follow them... 

And oh, fucking cold and seven hells, what did it take for a man, even a Psion, to have so many scar-tattoos? How much guilt and regret did Eames carry with him? That was the custom, wasn't it? To try to purge the guilt by marking it on your skin, to remember it so that the burden would become, if not commonplace, at least lessened.

"Yusuf's having a bad day."

It had been the first time Dom had heard Eames's real voice.

"Yes, and we're all very sorry for him," Arthur had said from where he stood in front of the doorway. "It's why you gave him the other bottle, right?"

The words had made no sense to Dom, blurred as everything was to him by exhaustion and incomprehension and pure grief, and he had simply stared at Arthur blankly, waiting for him to say something that made some kind of sense.

"It's fine," Eames had said then. "I don't think he's about to —"

"Yeah, well forgive me if I want to make sure," Arthur had replied, and that, _that_ had been the point where Dom finally realised Arthur was wearing a temp-mod on his arm, and that he was wearing a damn good one too, not one of Yusuf's hasty patchworks from the shuttle. He had been in Dom's room as a weapon, not a friend, and that had to have been the most surreal thing that had happened yet. 

That Arthur had come there as a weapon in case Dom's reaction was not what Eames assumed. Not to make sure Eames behaved. To make sure _Dom_ did.

"What —" Dom had started, and Arthur had snorted out a laugh.

"Okay, you win, Eames," he had said. "He's not going to freak. You get to explain."

"Not staying to help, then?" 

"Fuck you, your customs, and the ash it all blew in on," Arthur had retorted, and slipped out of the door. 

"Are you up for this, Dom?" Eames had looked at him.

Dom had been utterly confused. Up for what? Up for seeing Eames laid bare before him in a way that was, somehow, more than seeing his true face for the first time, or the fact that he had taken off his shirt? The tattoos were morbidly fascinating, drawing his eye in spite of the fact that he was trying to ignore them. 

"Up for what?"

"We need to say good-bye."

"You're leaving? But I —" and then he had realised what Eames meant, and no. No. He couldn't. He wasn't ready for this. Not ready to admit that Mal was gone. That she was not redeemable. That all that was left of her was her body — _with my body I thee worship_ , and oh, he had, and he had thought she had done the same, and it was all lost to him now, all that joy, all that sense of home, belonging, pleasure, laughter, light, love, all gone, all hardened, a shell of technology he would never touch again — and a brilliant mind that was lost to modification-psychosis, useable by Cobol but unrecognizable to anyone else.

"I can't." He had almost been whimpering, had known that his eyes must look wild and lost. "I _can't_. Eames, you can't ask this of me, not yet, I can't —"

"I need this, Dom. I need this." And then, desperately, "Fuck, _we_ need this."

It had been so hard to hear just how broken Eames sounded, how rough. It was hard to remember it.

And all of it had been necessary, the difficulty then and the memory he had to bear, because — 

_He carved their marks upon his skin, for honour and forgiveness, to remember and forget..._

It might have been Eames's tradition, the tradition of the dead Psion-Corps, not Dom's... but still, there had been comfort in the idea. Comfort because it was the tradition of the lost, and so was Mal. Comfort because it was memory, remembrance, validation, and she deserved that.

Even with what she had become, she deserved that. Had deserved it then, deserved it now, had earned the right to add her name to the living memorial Eames had turned his body into, deserved her place among the dead and the dates and the places that Dom would never know the words for, save the one that meant _love_.

_Mal, Mallorie..._

"Let me carry the guilt with me," Eames had said softly. "Let me carry it and make it less."

_And I will feel the guilt all the days of my life,_ Dom had thought, _because you will carry marks I made._

There was a kind of odd justice to that — or had been at the time. Blood and ink and ash on his hands, on Eames's back, ingrained in them both.

It had felt like absolution, that night.

Now, looking between the backs of his hands and the closed doorway, Dom wondered what the hell he had been thinking.

"You see it all the time," he said to Arthur suddenly, looking straight at him, and Arthur held his gaze without flinching and without pity and without, for once, any kind of sorrowful disdain.

"Yeah," he said gently. "Yeah, Dom. We all carry it. That was part of why he asked you. He wears it, I see it, you live it." 

"Would someone," Ariadne said sharply, "like to tell me what the fuck you're talking about?" 

"Food," Dom said, quickly changing the subject. "I'm starving and this looks to be a very long night since, apparently this job is going to be a bit more complex than we thought."

The sharkish look on Arthur's face helped to corroborate what he was saying, "Complex is good, especially if it means more money."

"You weren't talking about food." Ariadne frowned at them.

"No," Dom said. "But we are now."

"I _am_ going to find out," Ariadne said firmly. "Even if I have to ask Saito."

Dom's laughter curled out from the deepest part of him, and it felt good enough that he couldn't even bring himself to care when she threw her old scrib-pad at him and pouted. 

"Oh yeah," he said at last. "That's a great plan. Can I watch?"

"I am going to find us all a very large amount of caffeine," said Yusuf. "And possibly Eames, no, wait, I'm the last person —"

"Ari's the last person, I think," Arthur said wryly. "But I'll concede you come a close second. Yeah, I'll go get him." 

**

In spite of Dom’s agreement that the job was crap, he had, at least, negotiated them a decent contract. They had exclusive salvage rights, so they could go in, get whatever was there that was lucrative, and dispose of it as they wished. They could take the cream and leave the dregs to whatever subcontractor they chose.

That was perfect in Arthur’s book, because none of them had the patience for sorting through wire and metals and scrap. Plus, and in Arthur’s mind this was one of the most important points, Eames wouldn’t have to witness the burial ground of so many of his compatriots being blown open and exposed, their bones laid bare to the atmosphere, all for the sake of salvage.

And, in spite of all encouragement on his part, Eames refused to do anything but pretend that none of it mattered. Everything was alright and — _Damn it, Arthur, will you just fuckin’ let it go_ — they all buried themselves in prep work. 

Dom and Arthur made arrangements for a cargo carrier, Ari traded repair work for the use of scanners and diggers and all the small equipment they'd need for their initial sweep and Yusuf prepped temp mods to allow them to operate everything. Eames scowled over topographical surveys, declaring them useless.

"Can't we get some decent artists so things get put down properly? Convert-vids are a pile of crap. They weren't there. They don't know what the place looked like." He tossed the hand comp he had been staring at down on the table.

"I suppose you'll try to rip my head off if I point out that you weren't there at the time either?" Arthur pointed out, quite calmly."Study them, Eames."

Studying did not have remotely the same soothing effect on Eames that it had on Arthur. It didn't even have the weird detachment-enhancing effect that it had on Dom, who, strangely, tended to become less psychotically disturbing with something concrete (if boring) to do.

The effect it did have was to make him more prone to vanishing acts than usual, and being as the only way he could get out from under Arthur's eye was to actually not be in his near vicinity, that just added hunting him down to all the unendingly tedious tasks Arthur had to make sure were completed every time he wanted anything done.

"Eames, this has got to stop," Arthur said, as he slipped into a deserted corner of the station, ducking under a hanging access plate and over something that he really did not want to identify.

"The station has to turn, Arthur, or we lose gravity." Eames smirked, half-heartedly. 

"Yes, I know that," Arthur said with a patience he was a long way from feeling, "and the last time I checked you weren't the one who made sure it kept turning, and the controls weren't over here, so that's irrelevant. You are, on the other hand, the only one who can get Dom to put things into words the rest of us can stand hearing without wanting to punch him in the face, so would you kindly get your ass back to the workroom?"

"Yeah... okay... I'll be there." Eames turned back toward the port he'd been looking out of. "Just trot on back to Dom and I'll be right behind you."

Arthur sighed and stepped up beside him. "Look, Eames —"

"No, Arthur... stop right there. I can't deal with any more of your sympathetic crap." 

"Fine. Then get your ass back up to the workroom now, and you won't have to hear any more of it."

Being sympathetic was not something Arthur was used to being accused of, mostly because he tended to take extreme offence at the idea, and at least partly because it tended to be a terrible lie.

He'd tried on occasion to _be_ sympathetic, and it never got recognised when he made the attempt, so why the fact that he had spent the last few cycles chasing Eames round the space station to harangue him, bully him out of self-pity, and generally try and make him useful and functioning, counted as unwanted sympathy was something that made him want to laugh, more than anything.

"Hasn't worked yet," Eames muttered. Arthur resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. Barely.

"Look. I'm not being sympathetic. I don't _feel_ very sympathetic. I feel like hitting you very hard while yelling a lot. Oh wait. I _am_ being sympathetic, because I 'm _not doing that_ , aren't I nice?" 

"Fuck... I wish you would." Eames banged his fist against the bulkhead, then leaned his forehead against it.

Alright, that was also probably the first time he had ever been invited to punch someone. Well, he had been invited to _kick_ someone before, but that had been on a day when Eames had been angry with Yusuf and had wanted Arthur to help him beat his friend to a bloody pulp.

Arthur had kindly refused the generous offer and, with equal generosity, said that it was a pleasure he really didn't want to deprive Eames of enjoying — knowing full well that what it would actually end up as was Yusuf and Eames drunk as hell, and him trying to find painkiller-equivalents from somewhere at an exorbitant trading price for the resulting hangovers.

He didn't try to understand what made that particular friendship function, he didn't want to try understanding it, and he sure as hell wasn't ever going to get involved with it. 

Except for how he apparently was, because here he stood, knowing full well that Eames wasn't avoiding the workroom, he was avoiding Yusuf, because he didn't want to come out with something that really _was_ unforgiveable, and while everyone else was spared by the holos from seeing how close that moment was, Arthur damn well could see it, and he found it difficult to blame Eames for not wanting to provoke a real argument that touched on all the things he and Yusuf tried so very hard not to use against each other. 

Because damn, they could, if they decided to. And Eames wasn't the only one of their haphazard little crew with the ability to rip someone to shreds with badly-timed words.

Eames continued quietly, "If I don't get some of this out of me somehow, I'm going to bloody well explode." 

Yes, Arthur thought, that would explain the tension he could feel vibrating off Eames in waves. 

"I don't fucking remember half the things I've done, Arthur... and some of what I do remember, I wish I didn't." Eames shook his head. "I need to get drunk, or laid, or seven hells, something... anything that will make me stop thinking for just a little while."

And getting drunk generally meant Yusuf, which at the moment wasn't exactly — practical, and getting laid meant someone who'd only see the holo. Wonderful. 

"Would really, really annoying the pilots work?" he asked after a moment. "Only I think I've seen about ten things wrong with the Super's wire-ups, and I'd love to take a ship out and show them why it's fucked."

Eames stared at him.

"Thing is," Arthur said, "they always tend to start a fight with the nav-guy, not the wire-in. But hey, pilots. Who needs logic when you've got a mod-plug?"

Eames started to chuckle, "Darling, you are absolutely brilliant. Superior mayhem is just the sort of thing I had in mind. But — won't that all rather delay what you're wanting me to do?"

"Navigation, topography, who cares?" Arthur could bring off disinterest with the best of them, when he needed to. "They're all the same thing, right?" 

Eames's spluttering outrage was sort of fantastic.

**

"I want you both to know," Dom said, a double shift-cycle, three bottles of spirits, and a spectacular fight later, as he scowled into the brig, "that I do not in fact have the kind of money that can bail you both out on a regular basis."

"But you're doing it now, right?" Eames said hopefully.

"Against my better judgement and because, dear lights and stars help me, I need you, yes," Dom said, and then pointed his pointy finger of Fatherly Doom at them both. The hangover Arthur was sporting did quite a lot to inhibit its effect. "Next time? I'm leaving you both here. Saito told me it'll be cheaper."

"Ah, Dominic," Eames muttered as they were let out of the cell, "I'm hurt — and I'm certain Arthur is as well — that you'd take the side of a random bunch of pixels and electronic impulses over us. Hurt," he repeated for good measure, looking to Arthur for confirmation.

"My _head_ hurts," Arthur said in a pitiful attempt to evade having to answer anyone. Ever. Ever again in the history of ever, because words were sort of horrible and tasted like hangover too.

"Go see Yusuf, then," Dom said unsympathetically, and then, because he was a horrible, horrible man and deserved everything that had ever happened to him, "No, okay, you know what? Both of you go see Yusuf. I'm done. I have officially had it. Go see Yusuf, get your painkillers, get your shit sorted, get some fucking sleep, and come back to work."

Which, coming from Dom, was ironic and sort of shame-inducing, and Arthur really needed to get on that feeling-embarrassed thing, except all he could think was _oooh, painkillers._

"No." Eames said, folding his arms like a petulant four year old. "I'm not ready. Arthur, dear one, let's just go back to yours and sleep this off. Then I might just be able to face that."

"But Eames —" Arthur was more than a bit surprised to hear how whiney he sounded, "Pain killers..."

"I will," Dom said in an ominously level voice, "sell you both out to work on spaceside repairs for the next cycle, if you don't get to that workshop _right now_." 

"If two sure and certain idiots of my unfortunate acquaintance do not move their idiotic arses into my rooms this instant," Yusuf said through an appalling amount of static over the comm., "I will ensure that the next person they see is Ariadne with a hammer."

"Fuck..."

"Not on my watch." Dom threw them an evil looking grin and marched out ahead of them.

"I really hate him sometimes," Arthur said conversationally, one hand planted on top of his head to make sure his brain didn't fall out. "Really a lot."

"Which _one_?" Eames asked dismally. "Because right now, give me the energy, and I could put them up there as straight equals."

_Oh thank all the lights, we're back to normal,_ Arthur thought, and concentrated on getting down the corridor without his brain dribbling out of his ears.

**

They were set to go in an amazingly short amount of time — well, short if you counted work sessions rather than days, which everyone tended to, since the sessions lasted for substantially longer than the station's erratic time-settings. Their little Mandell, loaded to the brim, was flitting around the cargo carrier like a hen with one huge and very fat chick. 

Yusuf and Ariadne were piloting the carrier, Arthur and Dom, the Mandell. Eames was glued to maps of the planetoid, trying to match his memories to more recent survey shots. It wasn't quite as easy as he'd thought it would be, since the damage was pretty extensive.

"Topography, the lost and useless art," Arthur called back from the console.

"Thanks, got that..."

"Weren't you saying before we needed more — and I'm quoting here — 'decent artists so things get put down properly, who needs convert-vids'?"

"Arthur, shut up before I take this map and —"

"Don't finish the sentence?" Dom suggested.

"Arthur," Saito's visage and voice came up on one of the small monitors, "we will be arriving in-system in approximately forty-five minutes and I have located a useable landing site that is no more than five kilometres from the original entrance to the facility. Do you wish to set down there?"

"Eames?" 

"Yeah... good a place as any." Eames agreed. "Can't tell the best place to get in until we hit the ground anyway."

"That will be perfect, Saito." Arthur told him, then sent the landing information over to Yusuf.

Eames didn't really think anything about this could be perfect, up to and including Saito's suggestions, the maps, and Dom's oddly tolerant mood, but as long as he wasn't being questioned about things, he was willing to go along with it.

He suspected he had someone to thank for the fact Ariadne was in the carrier rather than the Mandell, so anything she felt like saying had to go through a comm., but since he didn't feel like enduring the process of being grateful, putting it into nicely evasive words, and then finding a way of not saying why he was grateful, he decided to go with the tried and tested option of being a complete bastard with all the social graces of something extinct, instead. 

It didn't stick though, once they got on the ground and he and Arthur escaped the other members of their group. Escaped and headed toward the old facility, leaving Dom to get the carrier anchored and opened, the tractors prepped for hauling, and to keep Ariadne occupied.

"Reconnaissance," he'd told Dom with a growl and had received nothing but a knowing smile, a nod, and an admonition that he take Arthur with him. That was one piece of advice that Eames had no problem with, never did.

"Ah, a 5-K walk. Always my favourite way to start the morning," Arthur had groused, but fell in line just behind him.

"Why, you'd rather run?"

"Yes, Eames. Obviously. I want to have a nice run over a dead planet. It's so very good for the lungs when you stir the dust up. And it tastes just lovely." 

Eames turned his head just enough to give Arthur the full benefit of a glare. Arthur looked blankly back at him, waiting.

"Fine," Eames growled at last. "Sorry I buggered off. Sorry I left you to cover for me. And thanks."

"You're not at all welcome, and don't do it again," Arthur returned. 

"Hmmmf..." Eames grunted out a sound, making a turn on the hilly path they were following and stopping short. So short, in fact, that Arthur barely avoided running into the back of him.

"Fuck, Eames. Give some warning next time." 

"Arthur, darling, I think I may see an answer to your reluctance to walk."

"You what? What is it?"

Eames pointed down the path.

"A hover bike. Huh... think it'll still run?"

"There's only one way to find out."

The hover bike ran off fuel. The fuel was practically crystallised. Eames set fire to it to try and melt it.

It melted. The bike worked.

It worked without them, and went shooting off into the wide (and decidedly grey) yonder.

"It's gone to find its friends," Eames said, thoroughly cheered up by burgeoning insanity.

"Yeah, wow, how _did_ I miss it, look! There's a whole flock of hovers, just out of sight over that — oh wait, no, no hills, um —"

"Over _there_ ," Eames said.

"Right, yes, over there — _fucking hell it's coming back, what —_ "

"Auto-something?"

"You melted its diagnostics?"

"It's, um, getting faster..."

It _was_ getting faster, and coming straight at them. Eames shoved Arthur off to the right and dove to the left, rolling to a stop about ten feet off the path. The hover bike stopped instantly in almost the exact spot it started.

"Eames..."

"Arthur?"

"I think it's stalking us."

Eames snorted out a laugh. "No... those bikes are programmed with auto-return in case the rider falls off. They circle and then come back to the place they lost their load." 

"Then why the fuck did you shove me out of the way?"

"That thing's been here for several years. Did you want me to simply trust that it would stop?"

"Point." 

The hover bike seemed to be looking at them.

Then it twitched its front wheel, as if impatient.

"I think we should call it Saito," Arthur said, utterly deadpan. "Saito Two. We can take it back and introduce them."

The bike promptly fell over with a series of choking splutters. Some of the fuel was obviously not quite melted enough. Arthur stared at it, gave up, and leant back on his hands, laughing.

"Poor bike," he managed. "Would you prefer it if we called you something more manly?"

The bike continued not to move. Eames was past speech.

"Goldfish," Arthur suggested. "Biscuit? Goldfish Biscuit the Third." 

The bike jerked, blew out a cloud of utterly-horrendous looking smoke, and hovered upright again.

"Oh you're _kidding_ ," said Arthur.

"Are you going to buy it a collar and a leash?" Eames asked, barely containing his laughter. "Take it for runs in the park on Saturdays? Really, Arthur."

"I'm not doing anything, you broke the fuel," Arthur said, his lips twitching as he moved forward to grasp the bike's handlebars and climb onto the seat. "Come on, let's get out of here before everyone catches up to us."

"Oh please yes," Eames climbed on behind him, still chuckling. "Why do I feel like I should say 'Giddy-up'?" 

"Just don't say —"

Too late. "Yee-haw!"

The unfortunately-named Goldfish Biscuit the Third seemed to really, really love that. And as a result, it showed off its skills obligingly. Its pre-programming had obviously been very, very good, at some point in time, and it had been well-loved and cared for before its owner had — left.

"Where the _fuck_ are we," Arthur groused, when the bike finally stopped, and then —"Oh fucking hell. Oh fuck, Eames, I'm sorry —"

The area was... well. Flattened was a polite way of putting it. Impact craters were littered everywhere, like unsightly blemishes on what should have been the pristine complexion of the landing field, the main buildings laid open like gaping maws of concrete and shattered glass. 

Arthur smacked the handlebars with an irritated hand, babbling in a very uncharacteristic way. "You, you are not sentient, so how you are fucking with us, you're a terrible bike, naming you was the worst thing I ever did —"

Usually, Eames would have been quite happy listening to Arthur tie himself up in knots of self-castigation, especially when taken out on an abandoned hover-bike, but he needed Arthur sane and focused and himself right that second, not on some kind of 'why do I let these things happen' spiral of pointless annoyance.

"Arthur, it's ok —"

"Do I have to remind you _right this second_ I can _see what you look like_? That I can see, damn it, what it _all_ looks like..." Arthur got off the bike and glared around him as though it had all personally offended him. 

Maybe it had. 

"No, so maybe you could remember why I _have_ the fucking things marked on me!" Eames yelled, not caring if that was what Arthur had meant or not; just wishing one person, one fucking person ever, would get it about the ash and the ink and the blood and the pain, and how you _remembered._

And then he was proved wrong, as Arthur put a hand on his shoulder, and left it there, no fleeting touch this time.

"No, you idiot," he said. "Because I can see your eyes. And your mouth. And all the lines beside them that you think no-one notices. But I do. Eames. I promise I do."

Eames's mouth opened... then closed. He looked at Arthur, then back to the broken — exploded — opening of the planetoid's main structure. "I know you do, Arthur. God of old, God help me, I know."

Eames slipped off the back of the bike, looking around the remembered area. There were no bodies on the ground, no marks of blood still visible, but he could still see them, see where they must have fallen, where he should have fallen if he'd remained. He ran his hand over the marks on his left shoulder, the sigils for his troup, his unit, his friends. The friends that had died here without him.

"They would have still died, you know." Arthur spoke quietly, "You would just have died with them."

"I should have," Eames said.

"No," Arthur said abruptly. "Forgive me if I'm glad you left. That you're not just a mark on someone else's shoulder. Fuck, Eames."

"You could have been a mark on mine, if I'd known who you were." It was as close as they'd ever come to talking about it.

Arthur. Arthur who had been a member of the City Corps, hunting the Psions down mercilessly for two years. Arthur who knew how to wait for the moment the time-soldiers flickered into reality, who had asked for his now-malfunctioning mod so that he could see then from choice what he was cursed to always look at now. 

Who people really were, what they really did.

And then he had killed them, because that had been his job, in the days before the Psion-Corps were officially annihilated and he took up with Dom, that had simply been what _he_ did. He felt no guilt over it, Eames knew, but he sometimes suffered from bad moments of _what if —_

There was more than one reason he had found it hard to look at Eames, in the first days of meeting him.

"We could both have been marks on someone else's." Arthur shrugged. "Yours made to grieve, mine made to honour. Remember your friend, you loved him. Remember the enemy, he fought well. And so on."

"But you weren't here." It was part statement, part plea, because as many times as Arthur said _no_ , Eames needed to hear it again. 

"No, I wasn't here," Arthur repeated, no trace of irritation at the old question in his voice. "I was never here. Hell, I didn't even know where 'here' was. Now I am, and I do. And I'm still sorry."

Eames's hand reached out to wrap around Arthur's wrist. It had become a familiar gesture — _I see you, I'm here_ — warm and reciprocal. "Let's go then, yeah? We need to find a way in."

It was a change of subject, meant to comfort both of them, but it was the weight of Eames's hand, the beat of Arthur's pulse that were the true comfort — warm, strong, alive — defeating the ghosts of the past.

**

The way into the facility was narrow and dirt clogged but not completely inaccessible. Obviously the survey team, the one who had recommended opening it up for salvage, had at least gone in to look around rather than declaring it a complete loss based on the surface damage. It would certainly expedite their salvage work, but it also made Arthur wonder if the hidden lab was quite so hidden any more.

"What do you think, Eames?" Arthur asked as he aimed his service light down the unlit corridor. He got a blank look for his trouble.

"About what?"

"Whether there's any point to this?"Arthur said as nicely as he could. "I mean hell, it's all wide open, anyone could have —"

"No-one knew, so it's worth a shot." Eames could manage to make his voice sound like a shrug. Arthur wasn't sure if it was a talent, or just one of the many, many things that made him want to punch Eames in the face.

"'S down on the third level, so may be a bit tricky to get to," Eames continued. "Not like we can just ring up an elevator. Have to check the stairs as we go."

And that was another thing, Eames's complete mastery of understatement. 

Oh, well, they had scanners to check for the structural integrity, and ropes in case there were places they couldn't get through and air filters for those nasty spots where chemicals and fumes often got trapped. Arthur wished he'd put on his other boots, the ones more suitable for climbing than walking.

"When you said check the stairs," he said a few minutes later, "You meant check if there _are_ stairs, right?"

"Yeah, that wasn't what I meant, but now you mention it..."

They looked into the gaping hole that had once, presumably, been a stairway.

Eames walked over to where the torn off railing had left a rough metal stump, and tugged on it, "Should hold us one at a time. Go now or wait for everyone else?"

That was the question, wasn't it? He and Eames did most of their best work together, taking chances that they couldn't, wouldn't, ask of Dom or Ari. It had served them well in some of the most dangerous spots... but this? This wasn't just physical dangers they were apt to encounter, but mental ones as well.

"Ah hell," Arthur said at last. "Let's just get it done..."

It was probably the stupidest thing he'd ever said.

Eames nodded, and tied off the end of the rope. "I'll go first. If it holds me, then it should be fine for you." 

He clipped the rope through the guides on his belt, tugged on gloves, and moved towards the edge of the former stairway. "I'll let you know if the next landing seems intact or if we'll have to go the whole way by rope."

"Oh will you, thanks," Arthur said automatically. "Wow, you're too kind, Eames..."

"Fuck you," Eames said, but he was grinning. "Okay, here goes nothing..."

With that, he backed up and dropped over the edge, and for a too long moment all Arthur could hear was the whir of sliding rope, until the click of the descenders locking into place allowed his heart to drop back out of his throat. 

"Fuck you, Eames..." he called down the shaft, conversationally, but was only answered by Eames's wild cackling laugh. "You did that on purpose, you bastard. Stop playing around."

"Damp blanket, you are," Eames called back happily, but Arthur could hear the strain under his cheerful voice, and winced. "Wet sock, soggy trouser-ends, used con —"

"Eames, shut the fuck up, can I come down or not?"

"Um, yeah? Since, you know, I'm here, and standing, well, semi-standing, it's a bit of a small ledge, but —"

"Oh, fuck's sake, shut up, if I crash into you —"

"Are you telling me to brace myself, darling?"

Arthur contemplated homicide, hooked himself up securely, and went down. 

He was grateful though, in the end, that Eames had gone first, since it was only Eames's weight and strength that held them onto that too narrow shelf of broken concrete while Arthur jimmied the door open. Hopefully there was something inside that they could hook their next line on to take them down to the third level. 

When the door finally opened, Arthur almost wished it hadn't. Their air scrubbers might keep the fumes from harming them, but it did nothing about the stench, strong and old, of decay and blood and things that he knew were all too clearly illuminated in the beam of his lamp.

"Arthur, I shouldn't be able to see this," Eames said at last. "I thought maybe the outside was just too busted up, but —"

"What, the whole place is holoed?" Arthur stared at him in the too-strong light. "Eames, that's not possible, it would have decayed —"

"Yeah, no, it was more than that, it — the stuff we used, to not be seen at all —"

"But you can't override that except if the button's pushed, it has to be —"

They looked at each other.

"Mod diffuser," Eames said quickly. He was sweating. "Oh fuck, Arthur, they — when they died, the —"

"Last weapon." Arthur gripped Eames's arm, not caring how the gesture might be taken. "Like blowing up a building when you leave. They couldn't do that, so they made it a stupid idea to come here, fuck. _Fuck_! That means every mod we've got —"

"Neutralised," Eames said, and he was shaking under Arthur's hand. "Oh God. Oh holy God and stars. We're disconnected. All of us." 

Mod diffusers were a very subtle defensive weapon and only used in a last ditch effort for surprise. They disconnected friend and foe alike, the only advantage being that, of course, the side that used them at least knew they were disconnected and could turn to more conventional weapons and defences, and could prepare beforehand to avoid the burn-outs that unexpected mod shut-downs could mean.

"It's okay, Eames... there's just us here. We'll worry about the rest later. It's okay."

"It's really not," Eames said, but he was still breathing, not trying to shut down and hold even oxygen in, and Arthur had seen him do that before and had to literally punch sense and air into him, so that had to be one for the good column.

"Yeah, it is. It's fine. We'll do a scope, make a recording of it, and get out. I'll comm. Dom and explain, and he can come in with the grab-fills, keep everyone the hell away, and we're gone. All right?"

"You make it sound so easy," Eames said, on the verge of something that wasn't quite laughing. Arthur kept his hand where it was.

"That's because it is, okay? Now come on. Put that convert-vid of yours to good use, and let's scan this mess." 

Eames nodded and turned on the equipment, scanning as they continued down the corridor, and marking things that were either good for salvage or that would warrant further investigation. Even though their own personal goals had now changed to focus on the hidden lab, it wouldn't do to ignore their original plan, if only to provide cover.

"Don't open that door, Arthur," Eames suddenly hissed a warning.

Arthur jerked his hand away from it, as if burned, "It's rigged?"

That was something else they'd have to watch for — leftover booby traps.

"No," Eames's face was grim and blank at the same time. "Crew quarters." 

"Fuck." Arthur swallowed. "Okay. Okay. Okay, that's — hey. Listen. Do you want to go in, I can stay here, you can — you know, the burning thing, for the ash, you can —"

"How the fuck are you still living," Eames muttered. "No. No I don't. Come on, Arthur, move."

"But you —" Arthur rarely stood his ground with regard to Eames and having any kind of say about his customs, but this —"Don't you need —"

" _No,_ " Eames repeated. "I need to find this fucking lab and then I need to go, okay?"

It was amazing, really, how remarkably intact the place seemed to be once you left the main floor and surface levels. They located a secondary staircase that went between the second and third floor. It was a bit wobbly, so they did anchor a safety line in case of collapse, but it held them easily as they descended, dark step by dark step.

"Which way to the lab?" Arthur asked, peering into the darkness of the third level. Eames was standing close to the wall with his scanner and lamp, looking puzzled.

"Should be right... here." He reached out a hand and ran it down a seam in the concrete.

Arthur groaned. "Don't suppose you brought explosives?"

"Funny thing, that, I thought blowing it up was what we _didn't_ want..." He didn't even have to look at Eames to know he was rolling his eyes.

"Eames. Did you bring explosives?"

"Yes," Eames said sulkily.

"Lovely, thank you, hand them over."

Eames reached into his pack with reluctance, "Arthur, I don't really think this is a good idea. The structural integrity of this whole place is questionable at the very least, and you want to add to the stress?"

"No, I want to get into the damn lab."

He wasn't thinking about the fact that he still hadn't managed to force himself to step more than a pace away from Eames.

"Okay..." Eames said slowly. "So do I, but I don't really want to bring everything down on our heads while we —"

"I'm pretty good with explosives," Arthur said coldly.

"When you're hooked up to a temp-mod —"

"Fuck it, Eames, I can blow a wall apart in my sleep and wire-deprived and you know it, what the hell's your —" Arthur took a deep breath, and calmed himself. "If you don't want to go in," he said very evenly, "pass me the convert vid and I'll do it by myself."

Eames gave a rather broken sigh, but didn't move, "Just give it a good long fuse, Arthur. I want us to be well away from it when it blows... just in case, yeah?"

"Yeah, okay." Arthur nodded.

The explosives more than worked. They brought down the whole damn concrete wall.

"This isn't a lab," Arthur said, when the dust had cleared. "This is a —"

"Morgue," Eames said grimly.

Yes, it was. It _was_ a morgue, at least metaphorically speaking. The bodies of the men and women who had been trapped inside were now all but desiccated, and for a moment Arthur was relieved that it was impossible to tell whether they were killed by quickly by chemical fumes or the more horrible death by slow asphyxiation and starvation. Either way, dead was dead and it was left for the living to deal with. 

"Look, Eames, why don't you go back up and contact Dom. I'll go through —"

"Fuck off, Arthur. I'm not some damsel in distress, I don't need to be packed in cotton wool and kept away from all the bad things," Eames growled at him, but Arthur noticed his hands shaking as he moved into the room. "File storage should be over there."

"You mean where the big sign is saying file storage? Oh Eames, my hero, whatever would I do without you?" Arthur asked in a voice completely devoid of inflection, and was quietly delighted when Eames spluttered into laughter more born of annoyance than anything, but was definitely something Arthur would take, because it was better than protestations about how no, that wasn't what he wanted to do, but was it really so terrible to want your — friend, for want of a better word — to not be in a kind of living hell?

"Yeah," Eames tried to joke back but Arthur could hear the strain in his voice, "almost makes you surprised that there wasn't a directional sign reading, 'This way to the super secret lab'."

They walked past work stations, many of them still occupied by their former inhabitants, and into the storage area, "Any project names or flags that you think we should look for first? Do you know?"

Shrug.

" _Hey,_ " Arthur said, annoyed himself now. "Come on, give me a break here, would you? You're here, I'm here, we're doing this, it sucks, now get over yourself and be useful for a change."

"I don't know the names, I just —" Eames tilted his head into the beam, mute for once, and Arthur took a proper look at the two ports on his neck — the one plugged by Yusuf's now-defunct holo-mod, and the other one, the one belonging to the time-soldiers, the one they all pretended didn't exist.

Arthur's hand came up without his volition to cover it, as though he were clamping down on a wound.

"They never told you what stuff was called, huh?"

"Why would we need to know?" Eames asked, and there was no bitterness there, but only regret. Arthur, who had never wasted time on such emotion, resisted the impulse to flinch away from its naked expression.

"Yeah, fuck useful, what good would useful do?" was all he said in return, and pressed down harder on the tough little port-graft. Eames bit his lip.

"I didn't —"

"Oh fuck that, it is _not_ on you," Arthur almost snarled. "Think I questioned shit either? I didn't, I just went with it, and look where that got me."

"It got you here." Eames said softly, pulling away and moving toward the files. "There were... fuck... there were rumours about all kinds of things. The things I mentioned before — safer mods, longer lasting... fixes for perms... money making stuff. Sneaking it out past the City Corps and Fischer both. Could all be bull, but they were doing something, Arthur, and it wasn't rec-drugs or weapons..."

Yeah, that would be the big three for illegals — recreational drugs, weapons or mods. There were other things, of course, but those brought the most money.

"Yeah, okay." Arthur squinted around him. "Yeah, you know what? We vid it, we take it to Dom. No, I'm not doing some noble crap here, Eames, I've got no idea what we're looking at, you've got less, and Dom. Will. Know. Okay?"

Eames looked at him suspiciously.

"Yeah, cast your mind back, just a bit," Arthur said tiredly. "What was Dom's job?"

"Perm-mods?"

"So yeah, he's gonna know every anagram, every coded reference, everything ever. Eames. Let's book it, okay? Dom can handle it from here, and he will." 

_If he wants to live out another cycle,_ Arthur added silently, _he fucking well will._

**  
 **iii {alone and shining in the empty room}**

Ariadne wasn't sure what, exactly, she had been expecting when they landed on the planetoid where they were doing salvage. She knew there had been a battle — _"Massacre"_ , Eames's voice corrected in her head — but somehow she still had not been prepared for the destruction she was seeing. The blackened teeth of concrete walls jutting above the scorched earth and gouges of dirt and rock where they had been literally blown into their current mounds, almost like a graveyard, which yeah, she _got_ it, the place was.

She bit her lip, sucked on the slight hint of blood.

"Impressive," Yusuf said from over by one of the dust piles, scanning the sky with one of his handheld gadgets that told him things Ari still wasn't sure she was ready to know.

"Bleak," Ari corrected him.

Over by the heavy load vehicles, Dom cursed something with dull emphasis, and waved them on.

"Boneyard," Yusuf said after a bit. "They call this the boneyard."

"Who —"

"My people."

" _Your_ people —!" It was stupid, to feel outrage at that now. It was an old phrase, it didn't mean anything except that Yusuf had lived further from the towers than anyone she'd met before who actually came from the Gates, that his idea of Standard wasn't hers, and that, like Eames, he used words from the past when he wasn't concentrating, phrases that no-one really thought any more, did they? 

But she did feel like that, she felt outrage and she felt hurt. 

A year on the space-station, a year of hiding and scavenging parts and being afraid every time a ship docked in one of the bays, in case this was the time they were found, a year of making coffee-approximations and no new clothes, just second-hand shit they traded for, and hardly any water despite all the pipes; a year that had been a world of rusting, decaying metal rather than the beautiful familiarity of ivory and horn, of agate and onyx-remnants and gold-flecked stone; a year of trading for little things they'd learned the others liked and getting unexpected little efforts made by them in return, and _still_ they were supposed to be different?

_I thought we were each others' people, now,_ she wanted to say, but she didn't, because she had a feeling the words didn't mean to her what they meant to him, and she'd never been much good with handling explosives, not in words and not in reality. 

She left that to Arthur, who didn't much care what went up in flames and crashed down behind him in ruins, as long as it got him a way through. 

But Yusuf smiled down at her, ignoring her instinctive protest, her quick anger. "Mm, yes. My people, is there another way of putting it? You people, that's what your lot said to us back then, this is a fight for you people, not for us, they said — so yes, let us say for the purposes of this over-due chat, my people. My people, who wanted to do better than just surviving, so that they employed men like Arthur, and then at the last, they took them here, they sent them _here_ , where they killed and killed and burned until the Psion-Corps were past saving — until the Psions did not _exist_ , no, not any more. 

"We eradicated, my dear Ariadne, what we called abominations. The men who moved through time to change it, to kill in the future and kill in the past — oh, not years ago or years away, but an hour, a few minutes, sometimes seconds' worth of difference. Changing perception with death, and sacrificing their own memories of what had been and could be and was now truth, to this cause of theirs. The time-soldiers, that is what everyone called them, still call them when there is too much spirits going around, and oh, you will never have heard it, not said like that, no, but it sounds the same as sewer-rat when you spit the word out just _so_. 

"Soulless, thoughtless, creations not men, no humanity in them that anyone talked about, because if you think you're wiping out humanity, there is then another word for it, a very bad word, and we were all better than that, we knew we were better than that. And you, little Academe — you would have grown up knowing never to use that term, except as an insult you grew out of when you left your first school, but I? I did not. I learned it as the Academes' children learn about the old bogeymen, a horror, a fantasy of terror. The thing that might get you, almost imaginary and not quite fictional enough for comfort. 

"I learned it as a great victory, a great vengeance, a time when the right people had triumphed, when the wealth of the Onyx sector had finally been legalised — and used to save your people. I learned it as our moment of freedom, of displaying our worth. We had bought an army — bought the _City-Corps_ , lords and lights, we had bought the ruling army, imagine that power! with resources that the ruling families did not have — and we had saved the Gates.

"And then — and then I went to the ivory towers to study, just as you did. I went there because I could, because that was another right we'd bought our way into, and I tried not to think about why I could, and I was mostly — ah, I think I was just relieved I never had to meet a Psion, that I would never have to. That it was over, that I was safe. We have a festival each year, in the cities. You may have seen it —"

"Yeah, with the old-time stuff, the light displays that you set fire to, um, fireworks, right? and the — but Yusuf, that's a holiday, that's a celebration, it's fun, I've been to —"

"And the music, and the parades, oh yes." Yusuf's smile was no longer a comfort. "Yes indeed, very festive. And my best mate can't show his face in public, he can never walk around again safely where there's any chance he might have the Psion-markings seen and recognised, because _my people_ won. And he should not have survived that winning. Glory be unto the righteous, that's the phrase, correct?"

"Your best mate? But I thought Eames was your best mate. Eames isn't —" Ariadne could suddenly feel her eyes widening impossibly. "Eames really was with the Psion-Corps? He was serious? I thought he just knew them or hung around with them, or, you know, Eames-ish stuff, but he was one of _them_? And that's why he —?"

Why he wouldn't show her his true face? Why he hid, even from friends? Was he so horribly disfigured in the battle that he was afraid that she'd shun him? That was ridiculous. Eames was her friend.

"Oh, Yusuf... is it very bad? How was he hurt?" Ariadne felt nothing but concern, and was extremely annoyed when Yusuf suddenly laughed at her, his amusement completely genuine and somehow more unnerving than his bitter intensity of before.

"Eames is as healthy as a horse," Yusuf finally got out. "He's not some poor thing, wasted and broken, that you have to feel pity for, Ariadne."

"But you said —" Now she was completely puzzled.

"Yeah, I said, I did say." Yusuf was still laughing. "More fool me. Look, Ari, you obviously don't know, and you never had to. Of course I am guessing here, but I think you never had to. It is just that — people like you, your family? Your towers and the Ivory Gate lot, the Academes, the theorists, the high-borns, the politicians, fucking _Cobol_ , even the Fischer Corps, all of it. They just — they used us, lords, it was as simple as that, they took us and they used us and they didn't tell any of us one true thing, and now look! Look! How right, how beautiful. We get a pretty day with fireworks, and my family thinks, my _father_ thinks it is the be-all and end-all because he has never had to look at the losing end of it. Except he does. He is. He is looking at it all the time. He really is, because we lost, too, and we are too stupid to see that. We are too stupid to see we were just another weapon, primed and loaded and finally — discharged. Kaboom, and aren't the sparkles bright?" 

"But the Psion-Corps were —"

_The monsters under the bed, the nightmare in the corner, the deeper shadow of the dark. They changed our future and our past on a whim and we were glad when they were gone, when we didn't have to worry about whether what we saw one day would no longer be true the next._ She couldn't finish.

"The Psion-Corps were _people_ , Ari, men just like Eames, who did what they were told and fought for what they believed in, and what they believed in was probably worse than anything that's come out of my dad's mouth in the last five years," Yusuf said. "We thought they were abominations who wanted us dead. They thought we were scum who didn't deserve oxygen-use, with our insistence on the sanctity of linear existence, even when it mean war and hundreds of lives. And I'd say talk to Eames about it some day, but really, chick, don't, because you won't like what he has to say. He's got blind spots, just as I do and far worse some days, and he's got the scars and half of them he made himself, and he's my best friend in the whole damn system, so can it up and shut it up, as they say, and we will all be just fine." 

Ari didn't. She didn't because she couldn't. Because —"My family —"

"Oh, you little cit! Ruling families, you know you are! Everyone else —"

"Gets used," Ariadne said quietly. "Yeah, okay. I learned that much, along the way. But you said — and Eames — I mean, how come —"

"It's called growing up," Yusuf said comfortably, and folded her hand in his. "We got older. We got to know each other. I stopped being scared, and he stopped thinking I hated him. And we both came to terms with the fact we were fucked over."

Wars were meant to have a good side and a bad side, she thought, but what if it wasn't a question of good or bad, right and wrong? 

What if it were just a question of differing beliefs and politics and economics, what if everyone who saw the divides and not the feathered blurs was simply used up, used until they were out of whatever fuelled them, ready to be discarded, left behind, seen as worthless because they'd been made so? 

Could it, could anything, be that... grey and that annilatory, all at once? 

She looked at Yusuf again, "But why does Eames hide behind illusions? Is he... is he wanted for war crimes or something?"

Yusuf looked at her blankly. "Good grief. No. You really _don't_ know much about the Psion-Corps, do you?"

Ari shook her head. "We didn't — I mean, I remember when you won, and the heroes came home —"

"Oh, no." Yusuf hugged her, sudden and hard, and she returned the gesture without even thinking about it, because he seemed to need it. "Oh lights and stars, Ari, no. No, there weren't any heroes. Just living men and dead men. Dead men who thought they were in the right, who — they carved the names of those who fought them on their skin, they didn't even know _when_ they were, never mind where they were, there was no point in putting up a marker, a fixed memorial that could not travel through their timelines, because that might vanish with _another_ action, one from someone else. So they honoured the dead on their _skin_. They gave them the honour of being real, of always existing, having existed, in one place at least. No-one saw them, the Psions, not usually, not as they really were, no-one knew what they really looked like, so they —"

"Oh my God." Ari bit into the cloth over his shoulder, because she finally understood what he meant, and she knew why Eames wouldn't let her see, and her mind was trained to make connections that went past surface speech, and she _got it_. She knew that no-one used the old words now, but she did and they were in her head and maybe, just a little, she believed in a single deity, just now and again she tried to pray, and —"Oh my God, Arthur's mod, the perm-mod, the damaged one — he can always _see_ , oh shit, he sees Eames all the time, I mean I knew that, but — that's why you let Arthur stay when you — Eames really trusts him, fuck —"

"Yeah."

"Eames carries —"

"Every name of every man, every name of every friend, every time and date of every battle or skirmish, because otherwise he _wouldn't know_ , he wouldn't remember if it was something that had happened or something he'd moved through time and changed, something he'd been asked to stop and failed to or something that might one day happen —"

"Arthur was supposed to kill him, people like him — that's why he had the perm-mod put in, to see him —"

"Yeah, chick. Yeah, he did, he was."

"Because people like mine told him to, because that was what he was designed for, they would have said." Ariadne was shivering, despite the dry heat of the planet, because fuck, she tried not to think about the shuttle, about Arthur covered in blood and _grinning_ , and now she couldn't stop. "That was why he was given the mods, they would have said, you're the best at this and good for nothing else, now go out and be what we made you — and then they told you and yours that you were the victims and the heroes, that you were saving us and yourselves, you were told you'd be the winners writing history, they told you this was your chance. But you never got it even when you won, they took that too, _we_ took that too, people like me, we took everything away from everybody who wasn't us, like it was ours anyway, we never even stopped for a second to wonder if it was the right thing, and we all — oh my God, oh my God, how do you all not hate me?"

"You're Ariadne." Yusuf held her tight. "You may not have noticed, but you're one of the best things in my life. I could never hate you. You didn't know. You didn't know, and Eames said that a very long time ago, remember, when he found you and told you the story..."

"When he was being all old, yeah, I remember. The girl who defeated the labyrinth —" Ariadne was crying now, hot and painful and stupid.

"Yeah. We couldn't hate you."

They couldn't hate her, because she'd helped them out of the maze and she'd done it without even trying... without even knowing that she did it, really, just by being herself. She wondered if she should be embarrassed by her own ignorance. "You said that Eames carried the memories on his skin so he wouldn't forget? I'm not sure I —"

"He's covered in tattoos, Ari." Yusuf told her simply. "They... the Psion-Corps, the time soldiers..." And it didn't sound like sewer-rat at all, coming from him, it sounded like grief and it sounded like friendship and why had no-one ever told her all this before? "They have — they had — trouble with memory because of the mods. It's not so bad for Eames now that he's not hopping anymore, but he still forgets. He — there's so much he doesn't know as a real memory, just as a dream, remembering a dream — I think, sometimes, he still gets lost."

"And if we see him," Ariadne whispered, "we won't be able not to know."

Yusuf held onto her. "Yeah."

"Well." Ari sniffed, rubbed her face on his long cloth coat, and drew back. "Well, sorry, but that's a pile of crap and you're all very stupid. I mean, we live on a rustbucket with useless pipes for ceilings, just because Dom's wife went and wired in to hell. And Eames thinks I'll judge him for some ink?"

But Yusuf's eyes were sad, and strange, and very distant.

"Yeah," he said, and let her go. "Yeah, Ari, he does. And so do I. He doesn't think, he _knows_. Because you will." 

**

It took some creative navigation between Yusuf and Saito to get the cargo boat landed on the bombed out remains of the landing field. It took even more creative double-talk for Ari to slip past Dom and Yusuf. She would not judge Eames. The very idea was unthinkable and somehow, rather insulting. 

But she was going to sneak closer, on her own, and prove it to herself. Prove that Yusuf was wrong about her.

The mods weren't working. Not here. Not even the patches were working, even when you put them right against your interface. She'd found that out for herself a while ago, rather miserably. And if the mods weren't working, then Eames would be visible... 

She looked around her at the barren, dust-sogged plains of the dead planet, and shivered.

"It won't be so bad," she whispered to herself. "What's a bit of ink?"

She crouched behind a hover-bike, its engine still a little warm; huddled against it outside the ruins of what must have once been the lab they'd all talked about, and stifled little sneezing coughs into her sleeve.

"You're not fooling anyone, you know..." Yusuf's voice suddenly whispered in her ear, causing her to jump and then fall over onto the dusty ground.

"Damn it, Yusuf! You scared me."

"I meant to." He shook his head, sadly. "I know what you're trying and... well... maybe it's for the best if you see Eames before he can see you. Then you can get over any... upset before you face him. Better for both of you, perhaps."

"I'm not going to be upset," Ari told him again.

But he only took her hand, folding it up in his as he had before, and crouched down to wait with her. His fingers were warm, and calloused, and slightly roughened by chemicals and welding, and she felt oddly safe with her own equally ragged and blotchy skin closed up inside them. 

It wasn't long before they heard the voices.

"Yes. Yes. Heard you, bought your t-shirt, spat in the drink, hated the food," Arthur said furiously. "Eames, they — you have to get a memorial, even if you're not ready now, you have to get it ready —"

"And will you burn the ash into my skin, Arthur? Will you take the hot knife and the dead-man's ash and the ink and carve what I ask of you into my —"

"You stupid — yeah, obviously, what have I just been saying, I'll do it all, just ask me —"

"You're a fucking miracle, in the strictest sense, Arthur," Eames said angrily, "because you shouldn't fucking well exist — no, okay? No, no, no, and I am not —"

"— not gonna mourn in honour, no, not you, Psion —"

"You fucking —" 

It wasn't Eames she saw next. It was a tumble of bodies, rolling out of the blasted concrete in a jumble of blows and epithets and snarls, trying their hardest to cause as much damage as they could without using weaponry.

"Oh, seven hells... that's Arthur..." She started to jump to her feet and run to his aid, but instead found herself held back, pinned down by Yusuf. "What are you doing? We have to help him."

"Ssshhh..." Yusuf warned her. "Eames won't really hurt him, nor Arthur hurt Eames. You know this, my dear. You've seen them fight often enough."

She looked back at the fight, at the wild looking man with cropped fairish hair and dark scar-tats on his skin. He was broad through the shoulders, muscular and quick with it, and probably outweighed Arthur by a good thirty pounds or more. He swung at Arthur, missed, and then reeled back as Arthur's next swing caught him across the jaw.

" _That's_ Eames?"

Yusuf just looked at her.

"Yeah, stupid question, okay, so —"

_What are they doing?_ she wanted to ask next, which again, pretty damn obvious, because the answer was, well, hitting each other. 

A lot.

Except — they kind of weren't. Well, they were, some of it had to hurt, but she'd seen Arthur fight, and he could put men twice the size of Eames straight down, and she'd seen Eames, holo or not, at all different heights and sizes and harmonics of danger, turn on an old coin-barter and somehow put his fist right where it would cause most damage.

This... wasn't any of that.

It was unscientific and useless and pointless and dusty and it involved a lot of shouting. 

"Stop it, you stupid bastard, stop —"

"You know how to —"

"I am not pulling a fucking gun on you, give it up —"

"You want your teeth, you better —"

"Stop it," Arthur yelled again, and rolled them over. He jabbed an elbow in, hard, and lay there with the side of his hand on Eames's throat. "I'll fucking do it," he said, and his lips were white with the dust and with anger. The side of his hand pressed in, threatening, dangerous, a clear warning of his intentions. You could take a man out for weeks with a blow like that, even if you weren't aiming to kill. "I'll do it and you know I would. I'm nice, I'll be nice, I won't even make it permanent," he said, coughing through dust. "Swear to your old God I will. But I'm not killing you."

"You take out your weapon and you fucking shoot me, Arthur, or I'll —"

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Arthur yelled into the haze. "Give it up. Give it the fuck up, I am not doing this, you aren't doing this, _no_!"

Now she was even more confused as she whispered to Yusuf, "What are they doing then? I mean, really... not just what it looks like."

Because what it looked like was a non-serious fight, one where no-one was genuinely looking to do the other permanent damage, yes, but it was still one where they talked of guns and death, still one where both parties were looking for something very serious as a resolution. 

She just wasn't sure, aside from the words they were actually saying, what that resolution actually was.

"Having a very serious philosophical discussion about free will," Yusuf said, just as Arthur grabbed Eames's shoulders and pulled them both up so they were sitting in the dust rather than lying in it. Ari couldn't help but think that had to be an improvement.

"Arthur, I'm meant to be _here_ ," Eames said, and Ariadne choked on a breath, on dust, on everything that was hovering around her – and then she caught sight of his back and shoulders and why the _hell_ wasn't he wearing at least a bulk-jacket, the stupid man? Holo clothes did _not work_.

A small part of her understood now why Arthur sometimes looked quite so insane about things when Eames walked into the room, and felt flickering amusement. It was the part that was trying very very hard not to think about whether Eames _had_ been wearing a jacket, earlier, or some kind of shirt at least, and what he might have used it for in the ruins, whose face he might have covered with it; or why he might have felt, after walking through the remains of the lab building and bunkers, that he needed to show his markings to the world.

Ariadne, city-bred high-born, favoured child, academic of the towers and the Ivory Gate, Ariadne who was also _Academe_ , that heady, useless title she had earned so long ago and wished to discard, but still knew was true; Ariadne could read the sigils that led down his spine, intricate and hours' worth of pain and memory-etching, stark and beautiful and curiously shaded in hues of grey and black that seemed almost to move by themselves in their oddly delicate blend.

_for we loved her without reason or rhyme even though she lives,_ said one line of hard-lined, blackened symbols, and the more looping swirls around it, the letters that carried out in their feathery darkness one of the oldest sayings Ariadne had ever heard, spoke of something more.

_Honi soit qui mal y pense._

She knew it translated, roughly, as 'Shamed be him who thinks evil of it.'

She knew also what those lines meant to Eames.

To Dom.

To Arthur.

What they would now mean to her.

That to those who were ashamed by Mal, evil would come. 

No, not would, not would, but something more definite, immediate, absolute. That evil _had_ come. On the day the world saw that promise, on the day Eames went in as himself to avenge what had been done to them all and particularly to Mal, people were going to die. 

Killing had been, after all, the purpose of the Psions' existence. The Psion-Corps had walked in a world where time and distance moulded to their ideas of change; where history and future were their chosen battlefields.

The Gate-Planet's inhabitants, each and every one of them, children and Academes and soldiers and rulers alike had waited, before the war, for a man like Eames to emerge from the dark and change the threads once more.

They had waited to be the targets, without knowing why they might have been chosen for them; ignorance as the true fear.

They had waited to die at the hands of the monsters under the bed of their awareness.

Ariadne leant against Yusuf's warm side, and tried not to breathe too loudly.

"Fuck fate!" Arthur was now speaking, low and intense. "Or, if you believe in it so strongly, just accept that fate had something else in mind for you that didn't include being here to fucking die. Accept that you were meant to help Dom escape Mal... and to teach Ari that there were whole worlds outside of the towers and the Ivory Gate and bloody Aqa with its stalls that she still misses... Fuck, Eames, accept that you were meant to be there for me... to keep me from completely shutting myself off from everyone..."

"And, I think," Yusuf whispered to Ariadne, "that the rest of this conversation is quite private. We should leave." 

But Ariadne shook her head, because she had to know, she had to be sure — 

"What the hell are you hoping to gain —" Yusuf started, and then was silenced himself, as Eames bowed his head in a kind of agreement, and his shoulders hunched, and Arthur said something in a soft curse, and then — 

"Yes," Eames said. "Yes, okay, yes, and if I —"

"Come back with me," Arthur said, and the ink-scarred shoulders lowered out of their defensive barrier of muscle. "Eames. Come back with me."

"I want —" Eames started, and Arthur leant forward, and kissed him, but it was not one of the old Onyx-kisses Ariadne had become immune to during the past year, the ones that meant no more than brush-laughter and delight-in-present-company, and sometimes meant, too, 'I'm drunk and you're drunk and the night is young and there are moons in the sky, come love me as best as we can, for a cycle, for a shift, for a dream-time.' 

She liked those kisses, she knew them well. She had given one to Arthur, one sleep-shift after their arrival, and gained acceptance of her offer and a few occasional shift-cycles of brief if intense pleasure in her workshop bunk as a result, neither of them wanting or expecting more than that; and no awkwardness following. She thought she might one day offer one to Yusuf, when she was ready for more than passing satisfaction; thought that she might want to promise him a little more than she could offer just yet, when she touched his lips with hers.

But this — this was a city kiss, an old-time kiss, the kind that of course Arthur would know; it was the one you never gave openly in public except once, the kiss you gave when you meant — 

_Oh._

"I want to wake up with you," Eames said then, low and solemn, and that was when Ariadne grabbed Yusuf's hand and pulled _him_ away, because maybe he knew about festivals that shouldn't be taking place, and wars that were fake and a lie and a disillusionment, but she knew a promise when it was being given, and she might be a cit, she might be high-born, she might belong to the Ivory Gate and the towers and the care of words, but she damn well _was_ a cit, and that still meant something; and she _was_ highborn, and if they'd stayed in the cities, she would have one day perhaps stood over the owning of those words on their repetition for the world to hear — no, more, she would have _insisted_ on being the one to hear them repeated, for Arthur and Eames, who had given her nothing but kindness and an odd kind of love and endless times of dream-creation and illusion while she practised her crafts, she would have insisted that it be her who agreed to witness. 

She would have taken the sigils from the air and sealed them into the machinery and into a new eternity with a glad heart. But that was for the second saying, and she knew that in the first time of speaking those words, _those_ words — she knew that the first time they were put into the humming movement of the air, you never got to hear them, not if you were outside it, you should never hear them in that moment unless they were meant for _you_.

_I want to wake up with you. I want you to wake up with me. I want the words we say when we awake and when we leave to be the first thing and the last thing we say to each other. Wake up with me._

She ran with Yusuf across the dead planet, her hand still in his, warm and folded and safe, but somehow she knew what was being said, somehow she could hear it even though it was too far now for any voices to carry.

_I love you._

**

The Mandell almost looked like part of the facility her team was there to investigate, her rear hatch open and down and equipment flowing haphazardly out of her interior as Dom had unshipped it and made sure, as much as he could, that it was all in working order after the trip. 

Anything more definite would have to wait for temp mods and actual work, right now it was all just a matter of organization and getting his — _where **have** they all gone_ — team put to work.

He wasn't worrying. He couldn't possibly be worrying, because he didn't much care what happened to Ariadne and Yusuf could probably restart the whole damn planetoid with his brain alone, never mind anything else, and — 

All right, so maybe he had a point about worrying, when it came to the basic fact that he had just allowed — and was that ever the wrong word, because he didn't allow anything, he just let things happen and hoped no-one ended up dead, but he couldn't think of another one — two members of opposing and now extinct military factions to go off and look at a massacre site that one had caused and the other survived, and one day Dom was going to perm-mod his own brain, never mind anyone else's.

"Self-pity," said Saito's voice, "is unattractive."

"Oh, go fuck yourself," said Dom wearily. "I don't much care if you think I look like an oozing boil."

There was a brief silence.

"I think I would like to reprogram my memory so I never heard that," Saito said at last.

"Yeah, fine... you go ahead and do that." Dom shook his head. "But before you do, please take the time to run a test on the carrier's load lifters. The aft two both seemed very sluggish when I ran them earlier, and I don't want them breaking down when we're actually using them."

"Wow. You... you got a lot done," Ariadne came running up the rampway, dragging Yusuf behind her.

"I had no choice," Dom scowled, "seeing as my whole crew decided to go sight-seeing rather than help me."

"Ooops. Sorry, Dom." Ariadne shrugged.

"I'm not," Yusuf informed him. "Not at all. It was an interesting walk."

He was, Dom noticed with a sort of oblique and sideways-slipping horror, still holding Ariadne's hand. Neither of them seemed to have noticed.

"Er," he said coherently.

"Very interesting indeed," Yusuf said thoughtfully. "I have learned a great deal about free will." 

Ariadne started laughing, but it sounded just on the edge of something less pleasant, the shaky laughter of someone shocked and coasting on a rush of pounding, too-swift blood and spiking adrenaline.

"Please don't tell me," Dom said hopelessly. "Please."

"It wasn't an Onyx-kiss," Ari said, gleefully manic.

"This is true." Yusuf nodded, and then he looked down at her and made an odd noise that sounded like a mechanism shorting out. "Oh, how very foolish of me, of course —"

"Hah, I so win." Ariadne looked smug, which was better, if more annoying, than the edgy laughter of before.

"When did _you_ use the Onyx-kiss?"

"Arthur," Ariadne said with a satisfied-looking smile.

"Well, fuck."

Ariadne nodded, slowly. Yusuf closed his eyes and groaned. "How do I not notice these things?"

"Not saying anything." Ariadne's voice dripped syrup. Yusuf snorted, and shook his head, and finally laughed a little.

Dom restrained himself from pointing out that they were _still holding hands_. And from asking them what had _really_ gone on out there, what was simmering under a levity that for once felt almost entirely forced.

"The load lifters will need to be lubricated," Saito's voice interrupted them. "Welcome back, Ariadne... Yusuf. I believe that Dominic has been eagerly awaiting your return... or at least I would assume so, from his repeated requests for life sign locations."

"Hey, Saito." Ariadne laughed, "We really didn't plan on being gone so long."

"The very idea of a mod inhibitor on such a large scale was simply too interesting to resist," Yusuf's reply took in everyone, including Saito. "How would you even prepare something like that? It's fascinating."

"... right," said Dom, wondering if now was the time to pray or curse. "And not that I now want to know the answer to this, but have you seen Arthur and Eames?"

"Yep," Ariadne said, contented and pleased with the world. Then she giggled, the nerviness of before returning, a fine wire of fear and shock twining through the sound. "Very yes."

"Oh hell," said Dom, miserably.

"There was a lot of dust," Yusuf said, in an attempt at placation.

"Yeah, but you could hear just fine," Ariadne said. She sounded abruptly tense, no more mirth in her, no matter what she was trying to convey. "Actually, you could see just fine, too."

"Then we ran away, discretion being the better part of valour, and so forth." Yusuf was keeping up his end of whatever this pretence was far better than she could manage.

"But we still —" Ariadne started, and Dom held up a hand.

"No, now is when you shut up," he said. "Really. There's need to know and there's _so_ don't need to know, and I'm not letting you even guess which one this is."

"Have I told you recently that you're no fun?" Ariadne asked. "Because you're no fun."

"I'm not here to have fun," Dom began. 

"That much is obvious," Saito said dryly.

"I wonder what their mixture was," Yusuf was still, apparently, talking about the mod suppressor... or at least Dom hoped he was.

"Please," he said, waving his hand at the shuttles, "feel free to go and find out. Take as long as you like. Not, not you, Ariadne, I need you here."

"I don't think I will go, just yet." Yusuf's mouth twitched. "I think I'd prefer for the storm to pass first."

Ariadne smacked him on the shoulder with a faint smile, then turned to Dom, "What do you need me for?"

"I have an idea for mod recalibration," Dom said. "While everything is disabled. Do you see? It's _all_ disabled. We can look under the interface..." 

"Wow, that's — huh. That's a really good idea, Dom." She nodded, stepping forward to his work space. "Are you talking about temps or perms here?"

"Well, I think it could work on either with the right —"

"Mr. Eames, it's good to see you." Saito called out a greeting. "And you as well, Arthur. Did your examination of the facility go well?"

"Something must have," Yusuf smirked out of the corner of his mouth. Dom glared at him, hopelessly and ineffectively, and wondered for the thousandth time how Yusuf had survived day-to-day life on the Gate-Planet, let alone the space-station. He had an absolute talent for infuriation that was almost enviable.

Which was when Ariadne decided she was going to make everyone's day impossible by turning away from Dom and running across the little metal platform to throw herself very hard at Eames in a kind of jumping-octopus hug, and said loudly enough for them all to hear — 

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know, and I'm sorry, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not like them, I'm _not_." 

Eames's expression was wavering some place between perplexed and horrified as he tried to disentangle himself, "No. Right, sweetheart, of course you're not. You're you and no one else, but could you let go of me? You're going to be covered in dust."

Because, of course, he was — dust and dirt and a bit of blood scraped into his knuckles and Arthur didn't look any better.

Ariadne showed absolutely no signs of letting go in the near future. Eames sent Dom a look of 'what the fuck, help?' 

'Mods off,' Dom mouthed back, and Eames froze.

"Ari. Hey. No," he said, trying to prise her arms from around his neck. "No, love, it's fine, you're fine —"

"Fuck you, shut up," Ariadne growled, and clung harder. "I love you, you stupid dick. You hide from me again and I'll smack you with a hotplate." 

"Er," said Eames, looking nonplussed. Arthur started laughing.

"I think she loves you, Mr. Eames."

"Yes, and thank you so much for your moment of timely condescension, Arthur." Eames rolled his eyes. "I love her too... but off. Please. Now, Ariadne."

Ariadne slid to her feet and turned on Arthur like a mongoose with a very surprised snake in its line of sight. "And you, fuck-face, had better live up to that kiss, or I'll gut you, got that? Right. Awesome. Dom, you were saying?"

"That I think I want to share Saito's memory wipe?" Dom said, horrified.

"Memory wipe," Yusuf suddenly looked as if he were about to rhapsodize. "Do you think your secret lab might have something like that, Eames?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Eames muttered suddenly, trying to regain his equilibrium. "We'll have to sort through a lot of —"

He paused and looked around him as if he'd lost something. He didn't even look sure of where he _was_.

" _Saito_ ," Arthur said, sudden and urgent. "You need to —"

"Yes, of course, and my apologies," the AI agreed, and Dom stared at all of them in complete bewilderment, wondering if this had now become his default setting. "I have been downloading your con-recordings," he said then, and somehow it was obvious he was talking to Eames. "Please. Allow me to connect to your interface."

"I don't have one..." Eames still looked lost, and Dom started to feel a chill of real fear at the back of his neck.

"But you do, certainly, do you think I would not have ensured this?" It was Saito's calm professor-voice, the one that had stabilised Ariadne on the Mandell, so long ago. Eames looked up at the rather wavery avatar. "I am of course delighted to see you whole and safe," Saito continued, and Dom saw Arthur close his eyes and let out an odd little gasp of relief that he felt no-one should have even noticed. "Now, if you would be so kind —"

No-one, Dom knew, was supposed to follow what happened next, but it was still strange not to be able to, to be divorced from a strange interaction designed only for one man, to watch something created by men like him take over from any sort of real communication and do a better job of it.

Arthur placed one hand on the small of Eames's back, guiding him to a chair. "What do I need to do?"

"Merely attach the connection, please," Saito replied, but then stopped Arthur in mid-movement. "No, Arthur... the other one."

The other one? Dom's eyes flashed immediately to Eames's neck, and winced. Yes, of course he'd have two. Psion-Corps, after all, it would have been a necessity for the specialized equipment.

"Fucking shit, no," Arthur said, his voice utterly level. "No way. No fucking way are you reactivating —"

"Whatever made you think it wasn't live?" Saito asked, and suddenly he and Arthur were in a grim stare-off that was a horrible mimicry of their usual game. "Arthur, I do not believe you are that much of a fool."

"You," Dom said, and oh. 

Oh, that was _anger_ he was feeling, long-dormant and real and very welcome. "Saito, you knew he had an open — you've been letting him walk around with a fucking open _time-jack_? You let me take him _here_ with an open time-jack, you knew this place had mod-erasers on it, you knew what it used to be, and you let me — you let me — why didn't you —" He clenched his hands in his hair, for lack of anything else concrete to tear at. "You miserable excuse for a fake intelligence, I should FRY YOU WHERE YOU ARE!"

"Eames is aware that it's open," Saito began, unoffended by Dom's outburst, and then paused, "I believe."

"You believe?" Dom's eyes shot back to Eames, but the other man looked so lost and confused that questioning him at that moment would have been pointless. 

It would certainly explain a few things. He knew that the Psions had difficulty with keeping themselves in the same reality as everyone else, but he'd never seen that happen to Eames, even on the space-station, where he knew it was a possibility, and was watching for it. 

Eames didn't normally have blank moments or periods of forgetfulness, or maybe they were just so minor that he'd learned to bluff his way through them, but either was fucking worrying as a concept, never mind watching it unfold in front of him. Dom was running out of people to blame for not noticing this, other than himself, and he didn't like the feeling one bit. "Arthur, did you know?"

"Fuck, Dom, I —" Arthur stopped himself. "I never even thought of it. What kind of a friend am I?" 

"The kind who deals with what is in front of them," Yusuf said suddenly, "as opposed to hypotheticals belonging to a computer. Very succinct, very helpful, look, I am all impressed. Regard my impressed expression, conveying the degree to which I am thoroughly awed. You want to reactivate the time-jack, Saito, yes? Have you considered why this might be a bad idea? Of course, of course you have, but the disadvantages are outweighed, I am sure. Let me offer an alternative. Arthur. Can you read the sigils."

"I. What?" Arthur looked at him blankly, lost to some kind of internal horror that Dom had a fair idea was going to end very badly for someone if they didn't make this stop.

"Can you read the bloody sigils?" Yusuf snapped, and thank all known stars, that seemed to be the right approach to take, because Arthur at least focused on him.

"Some. I. Not all, I don't —" Arthur hadn't finished the education available to him, but had gone into the City-Corps as soon as he got to the age where he was allowed his own signing. Dom, who had chosen tech rather than theory, was going to be worse even than that when it came to helping here, but — 

"Ariadne?" he asked. "You must be able to, you —"

"Yeah." Ariadne looked very small as she came up beside Yusuf. "Yeah, I can. I —"

"Ivory towers, yes, yes, how nice," Yusuf said, rolling his eyes. "Oh how fortunate, you downloaded linguistics. Right. Saito. You connect to the holo-mod. Show him through the interface."

"I beg your pardon, but I do not —"

"He put them on his skin to _remember_ ," Dom said, stepping forward. "So he can. So _we see_ , Arthur, that's what you told me in the workroom, wasn't it, we _all carry it_. Saito, show him. Ariadne. Arthur. Translate."

"And this will help him?"

"It should," Saito ventured.

"It will." Yusuf nodded his head. "It's the only thing that's always real. Real to him, at least. Of course it is, don't you understand yet? _He wrote it_."

Arthur picked up the cable and carefully attached it to Eames's second interface port. He looked almost as enthusiastic about doing it as a man going to his own execution. Dom could sympathize with him.

"Where do I start?" Arthur's voice cracked.

"The Heartline," Yusuf told him. "Start there and we'll see where we go next."

Arthur drew a deep breath, "Anatole Vanarssy, Gilly Hanes, Crawford Hanover... first in our hearts, ripped asunder ..."

There were dates, too, dates without names, dates that meant nothing to the listeners in the shuttle, little tributes to each man lost, each enemy defeated. 

And under his recitation, Ariadne gave her own, as Yusuf stared at her as though he were watching an impossible dawn.

Dom, who wasn't any kind of expert on any of this, just a very out-of-his-depth man on a dead planet who didn't want to watch one of his friends lose his mind to some kind of as yet uncharted mod-glitch, knew that she was reciting something she'd learned, something that couldn't be written on Eames's skin, but that maybe he'd had to learn too, and maybe, just maybe, arcane knowledge wasn't so goddamn useless after all.

Judging from the look on Yusuf's face, the fact that she knew whatever this was had turned out to be worth every damn war-festival ever created in a badly-constructed history of time.

"Its fields are full of good things and it has provision for every day," she said, and Dom knew she was talking about a paradise, a place for the dead to be at peace, an impossible heaven. It was nothing he'd ever considered, and everything he'd ever wanted to believe could exist, all at once. "Its granaries overflow, they reach the sky. Its ponds are full of fishes and its lakes of birds. Its fields are green with grass and its banks bear dates. He who lives there is happy. And the poor man is like the great elsewhere."

And it was her hand Eames finally took, as Arthur's list continued and her voice levelled under his, unfaltering.

"I belong to you like this plot of ground," she said calmly, her eyes distant, "that I planted with flowers, and sweet-smelling herbs. Sweet is its stream, dug by your hand, refreshing in the north wind. A lovely place to wander in, your hand in my hand." She closed her eyes for a moment, and stopped, then her small fingers closed around Eames's, and she looked up at Yusuf with a smile. "Your hand in my hand. Your hand in my hand. My body thrives, my heart exults, at our walking together — and hearing your voice is pomegranate wine. Um..." 

She faltered for the first time, uncertain, and then shook her head quickly, the little gesture seeming to shake the words loose from her as she went on a little hurriedly —"Is pomegranate wine, and I live by hearing it. Each look with which you look at me — sustains me more than food and drink."

" _Come back with me_ ," Arthur said then, and Dom added, knowing that now and only now was it his turn — 

"Qui mal y pense. Eames. A promise." It had been his to give, too, that night of ink and ash and the small sharp knife, not just Eames's, and he wasn't going to let either of them down now by forgetting his part.

Eames lifted his eyes, looking around the shuttle as he spoke the next phrase in time with Ariadne, "No matter how long we exist, we have our memories. Points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendour. Rather they remain as hard as gems."

Later on, if Dom were asked to describe the look on Eames's face at that moment, he would have called it a look of awakening, as if dozens of years wiped themselves away as mere bad dreams and disjointed fantasies.

Eames looked up at Arthur for a long slow moment, then said his first independent words since he'd been connected to the jack, "Hello, darling." 

**

**iv. {turned and turned, dived downward}**

Oddly, the first thing Eames remembered saying, when he was driven back into himself, was nothing of love, but an odd kind of irritation.

"Dom, what the fuck are you doing?"

"Reciting what you know," Dom said in the same tones, "and by the way, asshole, do that to me again and I'll space-vac you."

_Do what?_ Eames had been very close to asking, but somehow had the feeling that he knew. Not everything was clear, but it was better than it had been for a very long time. Eames felt, somehow, as if he had played an elaborate and misguided joke on all of his friends. He hadn't, of course, but the feeling still lingered — in the growls that Dom was making as he paced the room, Ariadne following him almost close enough to trip him. It was in Yusuf's crooked, somewhat blind smile and the slightly worried-annoyed-pleading expression on Arthur's face.

"Um. Sorry?" he ventured.

"Please," Yusuf said, and he sounded as though quite a lot of the dust had got into his throat, "be very kind and refrain from doing that to me again."

"What —"

" _Please_ don't," Yusuf repeated, and his very familiar and very dear face twisted a little out of his usual placidity. "Eames, I —"

And then he was being hugged, and by Yusuf, all hard arms and thick body stifling his automatic protests. "Like you as is," Yusuf said in a little grumble against his neck. "So don't you go anywhere, mate, okay?"

"Not." Eames assured him. 

"Fuck."

"What's that?" Eames wondered if he was in for another assault. This one from Arthur and it was, as always, a toss-up as to whether it would be fists or kisses that made contact first. 

"Fucking Saito."

Alright, that was neither and not at all what he had expected to hear, but it wasn't surprising that it was Arthur, cursed with clear vision in more ways than those granted him by a defective mod, who was the one to say them.

"Who is?" Eames asked hopelessly as Yusuf finally let him go, trying for one last-ditch attempt at deflection.

"What?"

"Who is fucking Saito?"

"Our AI?" Yusuf said, and then, "Well, no-one can fuck an AI, so I have to suppose that he would have to be fucking himself, and oh dear, I think words just lost all meaning in my head —"

"Er. What?" Dom had stopped pacing, and was just staring at them as though they had collectively lost their minds. It wasn't an unreasonable assumption.

" _Saito_ ," Arthur repeated angrily, and Yusuf looked as though he were contemplating reaching for a stunner, "is not Saito."

"No, he really _is_ — oh. Oh. No. _Oh_ ," Eames said in sudden and resigned understanding. "Because he's not the —" 

"Right, yeah, and your lack of surprise is the shocker here, because now I'm wondering. How long ago did you work that out?" Arthur looked utterly livid.

"How long have we had him now?" Eames said, setting his bet a bit further to the 'assault with fists' side of the pool. "Doesn't matter. It was pretty easy to figure out once I realized that he couldn't see through the mod."

"Fuck." Arthur jumped at the console, flipping switches , cutting off feeds and communication, isolating systems as fast as he was able and bullying Dom into do the same.

"What's this all about?" Dom demanded, even while he followed Arthur's lead. Eames closed his eyes in pure misery.

"Saito's not an AI, Dom," Arthur said in his flattest voice. "He's flesh and blood and he's tricked us."

Dom stared at the now-blank screen, and his eyes went wide. "He —"

"No —" Eames said desperately, and Dom turned on him.

"What, it's fine because he's wired in, because he's using mods, because he's not human any more, oh yeah, you'd know —"

"Dom, ah, Dom, no. Dominic. No. Stop, love of all, please, don't —"

"Because hey, when you prog in all you can you're not human, when you wire up your brain you're not human, when you've got all the mods done to you and they plug them out to a system how can you be human it doesn't count you're not human you're a machine it doesn't —"

" _Dom_!" And Eames got to him first, held him up, said _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_ , while Dom snarled obscenities against his bare shoulder, hit him with a clenched fist that did no damage, and shook against him, desperate and furious and choking on words he couldn't stop thinking.

"What were you thinking, Eames? What?" Faces that just moments ago had been looking at him with expressions of affection, were now scowling and angry.

Eames carefully sat Dom down on the shuttle's bench, not letting him go even when the glares around him persisted, because _fuck, Dom, sorry, this was never meant to hurt you, never..._ , and besides, Dom was still hanging onto him, and that was more important —"It's not... well, not totally that, I don't think. I don't think he's actually connected like that."

"But you took the chance for all of us?" Arthur hissed out the words. "What if... what if he's linked to Mal? Did you never think of that?"

"He helped us get away, Arthur. I don't think he would have if that were true." It was simple logic, but considering Mal's obsession, she probably would not have been so subtle.

"He's not —" Dom started, and stopped on a hard and guttural sound, swallowing tightly.

"No, I know," Eames said, as gently as he could, because he'd never meant for Dom to find out like that, never in a thousand years of change, but he was the only other one there who could ever understand.

"He's insulting, and he — he's seen us all, he makes jokes about Eames, he's never — and he's good at what he does," Dom said after a moment, drawing in a deep breath. "He's not — he's not Cobol, okay?"

"Then who the hell is he?"

That, of course, was the question. Eames had several theories ranging from the simple (boredom) to the absurd (evil overlord), but none of them quite seemed to fit in with Saito's personality. Maybe he was tracking them, infiltrating them, for some horrible reason, but it was just as likely that he simply wanted to get to know them, trust them, before outing himself.

"I'm not the right person to start insisting someone tells me just who they really are, am I?" he said, aiming for amused and coming across more as completely bitter about the whole thing. Which he was, but it still stung, knowing that everyone could hear exactly how he felt.

"I suppose that all there is for it is to ask him," Yusuf ventured. "You have his contact isolated. If you only turn on the A/V link it should be reasonably safe."

"You seriously don't think he'd just tell us?" Arthur huffed out a sceptical breath.

"I don't think you're going to find out one way or another if you don't reconnect him," Eames couldn't resist pointing out. Arthur glared at him.

"Yeah, and you are currently off the ideas-offering list, so don't bother," he said flatly.

Eames leaned back against the wall, smirking, "Well, if you really don't want to know even the explanation, truth or not, then just leave him that way. Going to be a bit rough though, when we try to leave without a navigation system."

"Fuck." Apparently that hadn't dawned on Arthur until he mentioned it.

Eames kept smiling. He hoped it looked exactly as murderous as he currently felt.

" _I'll_ ask him," Dom said, and managed to make everyone go from homicidally annoyed to outright panicked, which would normally have been amusing, but this time really wasn't.

"Um, Dom, no offence, but is that the best idea?" Ariadne said, waving a tentative hand in front of his eyes, as if checking he was tracking.

"You have a better one?" Dom asked, looking as though even if she did, he wasn't going to listen.

Ariadne opened her mouth, and closed it again. "No," she said meekly.

"Good," Dom shoved past Arthur and flipped some switches, turning the monitor and the A/V system back on. They saw Saito before they heard him, his face looking more terse instead of his usual lightly mocking expression. 

He was speaking, rather urgently it seemed, when the sound came back up, "— you need to listen to me. I can explain all, given the chance, but if you shut me out you'll never know what I —"

"Saito."

The not-AI's voice cut off, "Dominic."

"I'm giving the chance."

"And every time I think 'don't worry, Yusuf, he's just crazy', he deliberately finds a new level of what other people call sanity. And somehow, it proves at the same time how I have not yet fully explored the meaning of _batshit insane_ ," Yusuf said in a kind of amused awe.

Eames shrugged. "Welcome to the wonderful world of life with Dominic Cobb," he said.

"I want a reboot," Arthur said to the ceiling. "Press the buttons, reschedule me a new prog. Whatever it takes. I don't care. I want to be a robot."

" _Thanks_ ," Eames said. Arthur continued to stare at the ceiling. "What am I, a bug in the system — Dom, I know I don't want to hear the answer to this, but what the fuck are you doing?"

"Having a private conversation, which is impossible with you guys around," Dom said with a mad kind of calm, connecting his own interface directly into the AI system.

"Fuck," Arthur leapt to his feet to try to stop him, moments too late.

"You keep saying that word," Eames said, taking Arthur's hand and gently drawing him aside. "A practical application would be much more useful."

Arthur's answering scowl was completely expected.

"Ooh, if we're going to all be secret robots, do you think we could, like, reprog Dom from scratch while he's hooked in?" Ariadne asked, looking worryingly sincere.

God forbid anyone there could master the art of silence in times of stress or worry or outright fear. Sometimes Eames thought he and Arthur had taught her deflection that little bit _too well_.

"We've tried, it never takes," Arthur said absently, before looking annoyed, presumably at having allowed himself to rediscover humour. Or possibly just annoyed that he was so easily triggered to respond to someone using his own evasion metholodogy.

"No, just, joking aside? He was saying. Before you came back, he was saying that with all the mods disabled, we could work on recalibration..."

"Dom never uses his mod unless he's on his own and the rest of us are at a nice safe distance, so it wouldn't make any difference," Eames pointed out.

"Yeah, but it would be fun to _try_ ," Ariadne persisted. She was grinning.

Eames looked back over to where Dom was standing, one hand still extended toward the panel. He was locked into the communication, his head forward and tilted as if listening, his face in that intent semi-scowl that he'd worn ever since he'd come out of his post-Mal ineffectualness. 

"Do you think he's okay?" That was Arthur, dear worry-wart Arthur, so used to watching over Dom that it was almost his default setting.

"He looks pained."

"It's Dom, Ariadne. He always looks like that." Eames was rewarded with a small snort of laughter for that comment.

"Yeah, but now he looks more like that than always, and fucking hells, you guys are terrible for my sentence skills, you know that?"

"Maybe we should —" Arthur stared to move forward, and Eames grabbed the back of his jacket, snagging him backwards. Arthur smacked at his arm. "Get off, what —"

"Leave him _alone_ ," Eames said.

"Right, with the fake AI who wanted to wire into your _time-jack_ , great idea —"

"Did he?" Eames felt a small, surprised laugh catch in his throat. "Huh. Okay. So we can add brave and very stupid to our list of known qualities about this bloke, that's — something, I s'pose..."

"Right, was I speaking in a foreign language there? He wanted. To access —"

"Yes. I heard you."

"And you're not even vaguely bothered by this." It wasn't a question.

"Well, no, I'm assuming he thought it was a good idea at the time —"

"Oh? At the time, yeah, okay, would that be the same time as when he told us you've been walking round with an active, open time-jack for years, and didn't think it might have been something we should have been _told_?"

"Ah," Eames said awkwardly. "Yeah. Um." And then, because he had an absolute genius for saying precisely the wrong thing, added, "I... thought you knew." 

"You thought I —" Arthur's expression was beyond flabbergasted.

"I wear the holos for more reason than the tattoos, Arthur." Eames said calmly.

Ariadne looked at him with a frown, "How long has it been broken?"

"It's not broken," Yusuf said softly. "Time-ports are made that way. They don't shut down." 

"A soldier should always be prepared," Eames said, shaking his head. "Prepared to jump. Prepared to die. But they didn't think about what that would mean after the battles were done... or maybe they just didn't care."

"You know," Ariadne said in a tight little voice, "I'm kind of starting to see why people buy their own private armies. Because right now I would really love to own one. And then I could go and blow up every. Single. Ruling. Party. Ever."

"And that... was completely not the lesson I thought you would have taken from today," Yusuf said, blinking.

"I'm a child of my upbringing," Ariadne said primly. "If you can't politic it to death, call it evil and burn it down. Or shoot it. Or blow it up. You know. Destroy it. Or, huh. Buy it and then destroy it, that kind of works..." 

"Interesting you should say that," Dom said, turning around. "Seems like great minds think alike..."

"Are you alright?" A solemn question. Arthur again.

"I'm fine." He unlinked and flipped some switches on the panel. "I've turned off the audio for a moment, so we can talk."

They could still see Saito's avatar — most likely his actual visage since he wasn't an AI — on the screen. He looked as solemn as Arthur sounded.

"So... What was this thought?" Eames encouraged him to continue.

"Saito's the head of a ruling party on another city-planet," Dom said. "And yeah, Arthur, I checked, he's not lying. He wanted to use us before, working on buying out the Fischer Corporation —"

"You're kidding —"

"That would have been magnificent —" Ariadne and Yusuf were talking over each other.

"Yeah, except for how that didn't happen, thanks to Cobol, Mal, and a clusterfuck it seems Saito blamed himself for not noticing was about to happen," Dom cut them off. "So he decided he'd help get us out, instead."

"And then he left us for a year on a space-station, doing bugger all," Eames said flatly, unsure why any of this would make Dom inclined to trust Saito at all. 

"No." Dom winced. "No, that was me."

"Look, last I checked, you weren't the one —"

"Saito needs the best. He needs a designer. And no offence, Yusuf, but we're not exactly the same standard of —"

"None taken," Yusuf murmured.

"— so until I was halfway capable of getting my act together, he decided to wait. He's... good, apparently, at waiting."

"Right, but it sounds like he just needs you —"

"No," Dom said. "No, because what he needs me for, I can't do on my own."

Arthur let out a breath that sounded more like a laugh than anything else, but was utterly devoid of amusement.

"And I'm lost," Eames said.

"He wants you to take out Mal," Arthur said, ignoring him. "Take out Mal, and he'll have Cobol. Okay, that's —"

"That's cold," Yusuf said.

"That's brilliant," Ari added, "and, yeah, cold. But it's brilliant. Because Dom, you designed all her —"

"Yeah, Ari, thanks, but I do actually know why it has to be me, I don't need that part explained," Dom said, with a lack of anger Eames wasn't sure he would have been capable of, in his place.

"You know it needs to be done." Arthur said softly. "We can't leave her like that forever."

Dom nodded, "I know."

What a choice in life. To destroy the thing that you love most, or allow it to... well, Eames doubted she was suffering, that would assume she still retained human feelings under the mod-psychosis... allow it to linger, to live, but in such a corrupted state that it would hurt others. 

Eames was glad that it wasn't his decision to make. 

"Are we taking this on?" Arthur persisted.

Dom looked around the room, "Well, I am, but the rest of you have to make your own choice."

"Which is yes, obviously," Arthur said, flat and dismissive — and utterly transparent. It never had been a choice for him, when it came to protecting Dom.

"It's been a while since we've worked together properly," Yusuf said. "Yes. Count me in."

"Well, I'm not going back to the Ivory Gate, am I?" Ariadne asked dismissively. "Anyway, I'm desperate for real work. Sure, I'm in."

"Eames?" And why, why was he hesitating? He'd made that promise to Dom a year back, all he was doing now was seeing it through.

But Saito wanted all of them, and Eames didn't think he'd been completely honest with Dom as to why.

And Saito had been about to interface with his time-jack — which was still very, very active.

Eames forced himself to remember they could all see him, and manufactured a smile. "Sorry," he said lightly. "I didn't realise I had to say it aloud. Yeah, 'course I am."

**

The sunshine came through the delicately painted rice-paper screens over the window, casting patterns and colours on the floor all around his chair, reflections distilled from glass and water and hazed into delicacy by the gentle movements of the screens in the open air. It was a sight that usually filled Saito with a joyful feeling of calm and delight. 

It meant comfort. It meant home. It meant that no matter what convoluted machinations he went through to bring his empire to where it was a true power beyond the thought of merely making money, it was all for this... this wondrous simplicity that he craved at the end of the day.

And at that precise moment in time, he couldn't have given a damn if it went up in flames around him.

Watching them make their decisions wasn't hard. With Dominic Cobb convinced, there wouldn't be any kind of choice for them to make, whatever the reasons that led them to joining him. But watching the undercurrents was — surprisingly worrying, without being able to hear what was being said, and only miniscule shifts of expression from which he could deduce motive. 

Ariadne was the easiest to read, still angry over whatever it was the planetoid had revealed to her, consumed with the desire to be a saviour that always burned in the very young and the too highly-educated, no matter what their intelligence rating. Disillusionment, injustice, and a chance at setting both right — a heady combination that would have had her on board no matter how she had learned of Saito's end-plan.

Yusuf he could never read, much though he had tried. His motives were his own, his personal desires unreachable by Saito. Money would do a great deal for him, but it only went so far — the uncorruptability of the truly corrupted.

Arthur would go where Dom led, not because he was an innate follower, far from it, but because he was a protector. And Dom, as lost without his Mal as she was to the world, needed that protection. 

Of course, throwing Eames into the mix made everything so much more uncertain. Saito had been watching the interaction between the two men, or at least he had when he was certain it was Eames. Unfortunate that he was unable to see through Mr. Eames's mods as easily as Arthur could. By the time he had even realized that Eames had them, all he could do was turn it into a game of 'Let's Pretend'.

He had the nasty feeling that Eames had quite possibly seen through it — not that he would have said. The man had the oddest ideas of acceptable behaviour Saito had ever encountered, and it was more than possible that he didn't want to be rude to an AI by pointing out it had flaws.

But it was still unnerving, not knowing — because Saito had prided himself on being able to pass for an avatar due to just that — he did know everything. Everything he needed to. Everything he might have to use, to get what he wanted, to achieve his goal.

He just hadn't expected a damn time-soldier. He hadn't expected to feel guilty about the long-ago war he had been part of controlling. He hadn't expected not to _want_ to use the arsenal suddenly at his disposal.

He hadn't expected that there would come a point when he would stop thinking that any of them were more than his weapons, that he would care more about whether Ariadne remembered to put on her metal gloves before working on corrupted mods than he did about whether her skills were actually improving; that he would take time to check through the various screens as to whether Cobb was holding onto his frayed sanity, when he had spent too long immersed in his insane projects; that he would keep track of whether the temp-mods were holding out when Arthur took a job with the pilots because he actually wanted him to get back in one piece.

Not because they were going to be useful, and he needed them whole to accomplish that. Because they would leave a strange gap in his world, if he lost them.

"Mr. Eames." Saito wondered at the significance of the fact that they were allowing Eames to be their spokesman. Did that mean yes or no? Or was this just a request for more clarification before their final decision?

"We've decided to accept your proposal with stipulations."

"And those are?" Saito watched Eames carefully. He had to. The man had no tells that Saito had been able to determine even after watching him as frequently as he could recognize him.

"First, no more subterfuge. You want something, you say it. Out loud."

"Agreed." That was — difficult, would be difficult, but not impossible. "What else?"

"This." Eames waved a hand at the time-jack. "Tell me what the fuck you want it for."

"Do not force me to revise my opinion as to your possessing a modicum of intelligence," Saito said, unreasonably annoyed by the question. "I have every intention of Dominic remodifying it into usability, of course."

"You want to — what, fucking reactivate me? I'm not a computer, you bloody idiot!" Eames didn't seem annoyed, though, just a bit exasperated.

"No," Saito agreed, with a faint flicker of amusement. "We can also agree on that. But you do, potentially, have the ability to render distance-coverage a brief inconvenience. Which is something I would, indeed, be a fool not to consider utilising."

"You don't utilize _people_ , Saito," Dom interrupted. He sounded as tired as he looked. "If you're part of a team you use your skills to help each other voluntarily, for the good of the team or the job."

"I —" Saito looked around, reading the expressions of the other team members. They weren't very helpful. "I have misspoken. I believe that it would be to our best interests if we explored how your time-port could benefit this venture." 

Dom looked to Eames, who gave a quick nod of agreement.

"Then fine, we're in."

"Thank you," Saito said as nicely as he could.

"I'm kind of disappointed," Ariadne said, and she was, indeed, frowning.

"By —" Saito was lost.

"You were a lovely AI," Ariadne said, rather sadly. "I think I'm going to miss you."

**

They loaded all of the information they had taken from the lab's database into their on-board computer, and Dom, Ariadne and Yusuf began the arduous process of seeing what kind of sense they could make of it. Arthur had to admit that it was beyond him, so he volunteered to explore what remained of the above ground facilities to see if there would be anything there worth salvaging.

He'd barely stepped out of the door when he felt Eames's hand on his shoulder, heavy and commanding, directing him away from the shuttle and the cargo carrier.

"Um —" he started, coherently and helpfully, and then "Look —"

Eames did. Blandly and giving absolutely nothing away, which was when Arthur started to realise he might well have screwed up more than he thought.

"I'm sorry?" Arthur tried.

"Yeah? What for?"

"Um," Arthur said again, not really sure. He had a feeling there might be a list.

Eames watched him for several long moments, then shook his head and walked away in what Arthur was sure was just a random direction.

"Eames, wait!" He hurried to catch up.

"What is it, Arthur? You obviously don't have anything to say, so that's that then."

That's that? What did that mean? They were done? Over? So soon? Arthur scrambled to vocalize what he might possibly have done wrong. "I'm sorry for acting like I didn't trust you."

"Glad to hear it was an act," Eames said, but he just sounded vaguely amused, if still worryingly detached from the whole miserable attempt at a conversation, which meant that first off, that wasn't the problem, and secondly, _that wasn't the problem_.

"I'm sorry I didn't trust you," he said then, which sounded a hell of a lot better in his head than it did in words, and also had no effect on Eames at all, who just shrugged it off.

"'S okay. You don't have to."

And he meant it. Because it wasn't the kind of thing he bothered lying about, and wasn't that a fucking sad indictment of how their — whatever this was — tended to go? And if he meant it, then it wasn't what he wanted to talk about, but Arthur seriously couldn't think of anything — 

Oh.

_Oh._

"And I'm — I don't know what I did. What I said. That meant you couldn't trust me. I honestly _don't know_ , because right now I'm not thinking too clearly, and maybe I'll work it out in a few cycles or something, but this second, right while I'm talking, I don't know what I did. But I'm sorry you couldn't. Even if it wasn't anything — I don't know — _active_ — that I did, I am so sorry you felt you couldn't trust me."

Eames stopped. He froze in place and closed his eyes, "You know that trust is a difficult thing, Arthur. For me more so than for most."

But it wasn't the difficulty of Eames giving trust that held Arthur stiff and confused. It was the difficulty of him earning it. It made him feel even more helpless.

"Um," he said. Again. It was starting to annoy him. "Okay? Yes? But I don't —"

"Know what you did, yeah, I got that, which weirdly makes me feel better, because if you'd — okay, maybe we shouldn't be having this conversation after all."

"No, maybe we really fucking should, because I still have no clue what's going on," Arthur said, resisting the temptation to punch one of them in the head. He wasn't entirely certain who deserved it more.

"Right. Yeah. Only. You — I thought you could see me," Eames said, and he sounded as if he'd be on board with the head-punching too, no matter what form it took.

"Yes," Arthur said slowly, and then, " _Fuck_. What. No. No, fucking _hell_ , Eames, no, I was talking about _Saito_."

Eames cocked his head at Arthur and just watched him for several long minutes. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean I knew you had it, of course, but I didn't have any idea about the time-port — um, the jack — being open," Arthur said. "That's why I was so angry. How could Saito leave you out there so... vulnerable... and not tell anyone. It's just wrong, Eames. There are so many things that —"

So many things that could have happened. 

Arthur suddenly felt sick to his stomach even thinking about it. All it would have taken was one person ¬— one of Cobol's agents — having that information about Eames and they could have launched all kinds of attacks on him. Could have jumped him away, somewhere Arthur wouldn't be able to follow — to the future, to the past, over the distance Saito had been talking about and then some, and the feeling of complete panic that concept was inducing in Arthur was in no way helpful. "He should have told us."

"And you hate not being told things," Eames said, but he sounded thoughtful now, rather than detached.

"I really do," Arthur agreed.

"Which is why you were talking about Saito, because you think I should have told you. Even though I couldn't be sure."

"No, I don't think you _should_ have anything. I _wish_ you had. I wish you _could_ have. And no, for the first thirty seconds of wanting to _beat you to death with a scanner_ for not, I didn't get it. But seeing as you didn't even tell him you knew, it's a bit fucking difficult for me to hold a grudge. I mean, you could have been wrong about him. You weren't, true, but — I get it, I do. Shit, you could have been wrong and put us all through that and been wrong, and that would have been so many levels of bad that I don't know where to start. Which, yeah, that's not about trust, that's about sanity. But the rest of it... Eames, I am so crap at tech I can't start explaining the level of it. The port-jack thing could have been flashing with a giant 'on' sign and I wouldn't have got it. So that kind of thing? Yeah, you do have to tell me, or I won't even think about it."

"Okay." Eames nodded.

"Okay?" Just that? Okay? Okay what? That he understood? That he'd remember to say something about it the next time he had a ticking time-bomb attached to him? Because that, that would be good. And make Arthur feel less like he was being space-vacced.

"Yeah." Eames's answers still had not really answered his unasked question. Arthur bit his lip.

"Hey," he said then, a peace-offering, a truce in an ongoing battle he didn't know the rules to, "You think Ari really would use the hammer on me?"

"Think she's desperate to use it on someone, so yeah," Eames said, but he'd relaxed a bit, which meant yes, Arthur needed to let this go and find some other way of working out what this was really about, some other time when they weren't, for example, _on a dead planet_.

"Huh." Arthur grinned at him. "I'd better make sure she doesn't need to, then, hadn't I?"

"Maybe we'd both better." Eames lip twitched up on one side. "Make it a pact?"

"Seal it with a kiss maybe?" Arthur raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"Always have liked how you think."

_You really can't stand it,_ Arthur thought with a faint flicker of morbid humour, but this wasn't about what either of them were thinking, not really, unless it was the need to prove that no, rapid follow-on revelations didn't change anything that had happened by the ruins.

They'd already made that pact, trust issues aside, and no matter how this job — and he, at least, needed to think of it as _a job_ — turned out, they both seemed determined to hold to it.

"This planet," Eames said after a bit, most of which was taken up with Arthur thinking slightly confused variations on _fucking finally, I can do this when I like_ , and mostly trying to switch his brain off in favour of enjoying sensation instead, thank you so much, "is the most amazing buzzkill ever."

That was probably the greatest understatement in the whole horrible year. And also meant that all Arthur's attempts at just enjoying the moment had been completely pointless.

"And we're here until they've got all their — whatever it is," Arthur said disgustedly, all his good intentions dissolved in irritated acceptance of reality. "Yeah, isn't it great."

"Fan-bloody-tastic," Eames muttered, leaning his forehead against Arthur's. 

"Want to come help me tag... stuff?" Arthur asked softly.

"I live for it."

Because what else could they do at the moment, trapped as they were on the damn 'Boneyard', waiting to be led on a return trip to Hell so that Dom could destroy the chief demon? Their lives were nothing but one big lovely adventure.

"One good thing, though," Arthur said, just to watch Eames look completely confused, because misery really, really did love company, and the misery of confusion especially loved it. 

"There is?" Eames was blinking. Rapidly. It was sort of funny, particularly when he was quite this close. "All right, I'll play. What would that be?"

Arthur smiled. Slowly, deliberately, and he hoped with every bit of evil glee he was feeling. "This time," he said, quietly and clearly, "everyone gets to see who I'm touching." 

Because seriously. He was _so sick_ of the holos. Of everything they implied. Of everything he couldn't see, or experience, or explain.

Eames's surprised laughter was everything he'd hoped for.

**

The next few days were ... well, crazed was probably the most descriptive phrase that Arthur could come up with. Crazed and hectic and just a bit insane. Well, maybe more than a bit, but no one would admit to that at the moment.

Ariadne and Yusuf were up to their armpits in deciphering all the chemical cues in the mod suppressor. They would work until hunger or unconsciousness hit one or the other and then they'd both stop and eat or sleep and then be right back at it in too short a time. They were talking constantly, using verbal shortcuts that made no sense to anyone but themselves and waving their hands and concocting trial after trial... then sending Arthur off for more samples — of soil, of air, of water — and then there would be more tests, more handwaving.

Arthur was _bored out of his skull._

His only consolation was that he wasn't nearly as bored as Eames, and he didn't have the underlying jitters going with the boredom as a side-order. Dom had taken the suggestion about the time-port seriously — and had scrounged up enough parts from the defunct lab to start replicating one of his own.

Which meant that Eames spent far too many cycles watching Dom short-circuit things, and wondering when he was going to be on the list, and _very carefully_ not talking to Arthur about it, because no, screwed mods were still not on their Allowed Subjects Of Discussion, and weren't going to be for as long as Arthur had any say in the matter.

He had a feeling that this was a time-allowance that was rapidly shortening.

Picking up a hand comp and some equipment he moved toward the back of the shuttle, "I'm going to go do some more tagging, Dom."

Dom looked up from yet another inspection of Eames's mods and nodded.

"Be careful." Eames said with a sigh and a flinch as Dom pushed too hard on the interface, causing it to scrape against his collarbone.

"Yeah, I will." Arthur gave him a sympathetic smile as he ducked out the hatch.

"And ow, Dom," Eames said. "I'm rather attached to this, remember?"

"Sorry," Dom said by rote and completely without sincerity from behind him, and Eames's sigh could have powered up the interface all by itself with the force of its irritation.

Arthur didn't even bother to feel guilty about viewing what he was doing as an escape.

The old hoverbike, which had somehow ended up becoming part of the vehicle-allotments, and kept its name mostly due to the fact that no-one could resist the silliness of it (and some day he needed to pay Eames back for telling them, really he did), rested in the shade of the shuttle and Arthur climbed on, "Looks like it's just you and me, GB3."

The bike did not, of course, reply, but it did at least start up with minimal fuss and start down the track towards the ruin.

Arthur wasn't sure what he was looking for. He wasn't even sure that there was any point to carrying on his search — they all had more than enough to be going on with, and it wasn't as though the now-infamous 'super secret lab room' showed any signs of existing — but still. It was like having an itch on the roof of his mouth, the feeling that he was missing something, overlooking something.

That in fact, he was being deliberately distracted from what was right in front of him, in the same way that holos did to everyone else.

He arrived at the ruin, and entered the torn open stairwell. After the first day they'd rigged it with anti-gravs and platform so the rope he carried was merely a precaution in case he ventured into a different part of the facility and needed it. The lab, when he arrived, looked just as it had on his first visit, with the addition of the portable lights they'd brought in.

"This can't be all of it." Arthur shook his head. They were missing something. Well, maybe not missing, but too single-minded in their searches. He slipped into a chair, connected his hand comp to the local terminal and just began doing random searches.

And that was the problem right there, he suddenly realised. He was looking for something the systems were programmed to recognise, but what if what was right in front of him wasn't something he _or_ any of the scanners could pick up on — because no-one had thought to enter it? 

Something not on a database, because it wasn't finished. It wasn't entered because it didn't — _quite_ — exist. 

Officially.

But in the real world, in the purely right-in-front-of him, non-dependent upon technology, _real world_ , the world hardly anyone was used to seeing any more — 

Yeah. He'd been looking with the wrong kind of eyes.

He stood, scanning the facility. Records Storage. Chem Lab. Mechanical Interface. Sim Lab.

They'd downloaded damn billabytes of records, raided the Chem Lab of anything useful and Dom had transferred a lot of the Mechanicals for his work. He wondered if the Sim Lab would give him any enlightenment.

It didn't.

Or at least, not of the kind that came with any sort of understanding.

What it _did_ give him was a locked mod that Arthur stood absolutely no chance of decoding — because he didn't understand the damn things anyway and he barely even knew how to operate the temp-mods, let alone whatever this was.

And then he picked it up, and it behaved like a damned festival night.

"Strange." He frowned, then pulled out his comp to see if he could find any reference to such a device. "Probably just a toy for someone's kid or something." 

But no, he found it. He couldn't actually pronounce its name, but it seemed to have something to do with diagnostics. That would explain why it had reacted to him. It had to be sensing his failing perm mod.

And yeah, that made sense, you'd need something around that could pick up on glitches, especially with over a hundred people coming in and out with open timeport-mods.

Except it didn't, because in that case why in the fuck was it picking up on _his_ irreversibly screwed tech? All he'd been able to do was look past holos. Now it was all he _could_ do, but the point remained. That wasn't something the Psion-Corps would have needed to worry about, malfunction or not, because they had _two_ ports, and from what Arthur had managed to prise out of Eames with the metaphorical crowbar needed to get him to talk about any of it, they didn't give much of a damn about the second one.

Arthur glared down at the innocently-glowing mod, as if it were deliberately withholding information.

He seldom regretted his lack of education, or the fact that he had chosen the life of a soldier over that of a learned cit. He knew that sitting for lectures on philosophy or economics would have driven him quickly insane. But right now, as he looked down at his hand comp and tried to make sense out of technical jargon, he could almost have wished it wasn't true.

Still, he was not without resources, "Saito?" 

Saito, freed from the impersonal boundaries of an avatar, had changed precisely not at all. He was still continually verging on rude, impatient with their moments of incomprehension, and had a mysterious and frequently unpleasant sense of humour. 

He also hated being disturbed from whatever it was he normally did.

"Yes, as always, I am entirely at your disposal," he said with more than a trace of sarcasm.

"Of course you are, because we're a team now, right?" Arthur raised a bland eyebrow at the image on the comp. "There's no room for tourists on a team, you know?"

Saito just barely refrained from rolling his eyes, but Arthur could tell it was a close-run thing, and wondered how many of the others had said just that to Saito recently, and how many times in total that added up to him having heard the phrase. It was a fairly wonderful concept, just as everything that added to Saito’s irritation quotient tended to be. "Yes. Yes. So I have heard. What can I do for you... team mate?"

"I'm going to send you some schematics to look at. I've located this device and I'm not certain what it does." Arthur paused for a moment. "I know that seems trivial, Saito. But I have a feeling that it's something important. I'm not sure why."

"Very well, Arthur."

And that, as usual, was that. Saito didn't seem to expect any sort of interaction with them bar the obvious, and quite honestly, Arthur was happy to leave it that way. 

He sent over the schematics, shoved the mod into his bag, and headed back out.

**

By the look of things inside the shuttle, not much had changed since he had left hours before, with the exception that Dom, Ari and Yusuf all had their heads together over the work bench and Eames was sound asleep on the shuttle's bench, something Arthur really didn't want to disturb after all Dom's experimenting. After a quick greeting, mostly ignored by his busy team mates, Arthur went over to the cargo carrier and linked in to Saito from there.

"Saito?" Arthur addressed the screen, looking back over his shoulder to make sure that no one had suddenly realized he had returned and come looking for him. Not that he expected it, but long years of being on alert tended to stick with you.

"Yes. This is interesting." Saito looked less like an avatar than usual, his attention well and truly gained. "You have found something here that is new even to my schematics systems. Did it react to you?"

"Yeah." Arthur looked down at his bag. "Yeah, it lit up, but it didn't do anything else."

"It would not have. It is designed for those with more than one permanent modification. Your — damage —" and it shouldn't have been funny, to hear Saito being careful with words, but somehow it really was, "— would have commanded activation, but you only have one port. It had nothing to shut down."

"It _shuts mods down_?" Arthur stared wildly between Saito and his bag. "What's the point, they've got stuff here that closes off every mod ever over a whole planet —"

"Yes. Which is not always what is required, should there be repairs needed. Individual repairs." Saito looked thoughtful. "It is unfortunate that the damage done to your modification does not allow for a replacement to be attached. It would make it much simpler if I could demonstrate on you."

"I think I get it. It's a selective mod suppressor," Arthur nodded slowly, and hooked the little thing out. It didn't light up this time, for which he was incredibly grateful, because that kind of attention-drawing he could really have done without. "So you can choose to shut down some and leave others active. Wait! Would that work on Eames? To shut down his time-jack?"

If this was the answer to that problem, Arthur would be more than relieved. The thought of someone using the jack against Eames's will and without his prior knowledge still made Arthur feel vaguely sick.

"No," Saito said thoughtfully. "No, I do not think it was designed for that. In fact, I suspect it was specifically designed so that was the one thing it could _not_ affect. This was for damage done to any other modifications, to eliminate interference. Of course, we could ask him to try, and see if —"

"Yeah, no," Arthur said immediately. "How about we don't."

Saito had the gall to look slightly disappointed. "As you prefer," he said, more coolly than usual. "But there are not many people who have more than one permanent modification at the same time. You are losing the opportunity to work out the details here, and I cannot provide them without physical evidence of how precisely this might operate."

Arthur resisted the impulse to bang his head on something hard. "Right, but if it's not going to work on the time-jack —"

"It might, however, work on the other modification. Which would, I believe, allow Dominic to figure out the time-jack without interference."

"Or it might not work on the other perm, because he hasn't got anything except the holo and the time-jack as perms, and that might not be what they were worried about. Or it might get confused with conflicting tech messages and screw both of them up irretrievably."

"Yes," Saito admitted.

"And I repeat, no," Arthur said flatly.

Arthur had no idea what a malfunctioning time-port mod would do to Eames, and he had no intention of finding out any time soon. He lived with his malfunction but, as annoying as it sometimes was, it wasn't life threatening. If something went wrong with Eames's time-jack, what would happen? Would it activate, sending Eames irretrievably bouncing through the future? That was only one of many scenarios that Arthur's mind could come up with — and Arthur was considered to be unimaginative.

"Then there is no other way of testing it," Saito said, not even bothering to have the decency to look apologetic.

"Brilliant," said Arthur dismally.

"What is?" Eames said behind him, and Arthur nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Do _not_ do that," he said through gritted teeth.

"Er, okay," Eames said, sounding confused. "Do what?"

"Sneak up on me." Arthur was well aware that he sounded ridiculous, but he was cresting an adrenalin spike that was going to _hurt_ when it crashed down again, and he disliked few things more.

"Don't like surprises, darling?" Eames chuckled lightly. "I'll have to remember that."

Arthur fidgeted, his skin itching with reaction, "Yeah, you do that."

"I just escaped the clutches of the mad Dominic and my first thought was to find you." Eames winked at him. "And here I find you, meeting another man. Should I worry?"

"You're completely ludicrous," Arthur said in a very unadmiring way, which made it even more bizarre when Eames smiled at him delightedly. "Urgh," he added, as his heart did things that were less 'fast-and-controlled' and more 'I have just been made to panic and I do not appreciate it, so I'm going to make you suffer, ha'.

"Right, I think I need to repeat that," Eames said, losing the smile. " _Should_ I worry?"

"I do not think you need to ask that question, Mr. Eames," Saito's calming voice broke through the tension between them.

"Fine, then I'll ask another." Eames picked up the suppressor. "What's this?"

"It's just something I found at the lab site." Arthur did his best to make it sound unimportant. "I was asking Saito if he could identify it."

Eames gave Arthur a searching look, then frowned and turned towards the monitor.

"What's this?" He repeated the question.

"I believe it is an individual, targeted permanent-modification suppressor, designed to disable one modification while allowing any others that may be installed to continue running," Saito said instantly. Arthur stared at him.

"Thank you," he said bitterly.

"You are more than welcome," Saito said. He looked as though he was trying not to smile.

Arthur felt his heart sink as Eames turned back towards him. The bland face was back - the mask that Eames had never held between them even though Arthur was the only one who could always see him. It made him feel cold and he was certain that his hands were shaking from more than the letdown of the adrenaline rush. 

"And you found the need to speak to Saito here, rather than simply take this to Dom?"

"He was more than a little... occupied." Arthur stumbled over his words, hating that he did. "I had a feeling it was something usable but... Look, Eames, I didn't want him to decide to test it on you. I... this thing... it... if it works right it..."

Eames wasn't helping him at all.

"I don't believe he trusts Dominic," Saito said out of the ether.

"Will you _please_ shut up?" Arthur moaned.

"I thought our agreement required me to be honest at all times," Saito said, and oh, yeah, he was enjoying this far, far too much, the bastard. "And in the cause of complete transparency —"

"I wish you'd fucking evaporate, never mind go transparent —" Arthur said across him.

"— I feel I should point out that I was in favour of making you the test subject, but was refused," Saito finished up triumphantly.

"And thank you both so much for having this discussion without me," Eames said, not mollified at all.

Arthur slammed his hand down on the console, effectively cutting Saito's connection. If he was going to completely fuck up his relationship with Eames, he'd do it on his own, thank you.

"Eames, I —"

"What, Arthur? What? 'I was hiding things from you again?' 'I made plans that affected you with someone that I've professed not to trust all along?' What were you going to say?"

"It lit up when I found it and I didn't know what it was and I might have sort of — I didn't know what it did, okay, so I sent the schematics to Saito and then when I got back here you were asleep," Arthur said, which was spectacularly managing to say precisely none of the things Eames had suggested, and also, dear lights and stars, embarrassingly true. "And. I sort of hoped. I thought maybe. I thought it might be something that could fix _mine_. But then Saito started talking, and it wasn't. And he's difficult to stop. And then it was a conversation about mods, _again_ , and yeah, you factored into it, but more because Saito is a tunnel-visioned bastard who likes to work everything out with test subjects, not because I was thinking about hiding stuff from you. And then he was talking about using it on you, and I thought, well, okay, here's something you might be better off not knowing. Which you are, honestly, proving right this second. So."

Eames blinked twice then slowly shook his head, "This is what I've been talking about. Trust. Yours, mine, ours. Don't know if we're ever going to get this right."

"But we can keep trying?" 

"Yeah. I s'pose." Eames gestured a bit wildly. "Why not?"

Arthur let out the breath he'd been holding since before his desperate babbling explanation. "Good. That's good. " 

"But you have to tell me about this." Eames pointed at the suppressor. "Slowly this time."

Arthur did. Slowly. And comprehensively. And with interruptions of the sort that involved Eames trying not to shout at him for incredible stupidity and sounding like a furious snake in the process of not-shouting. 

And when he was finally done, which seemed to take forever, and he had no idea how the other three could possibly be ignoring them so successfully, what with the way Arthur's voice kept rising above normal tones and Eames's not-shouting being extremely penetrating, Eames looked the oddest combination of annoyed and amused that Arthur had ever seen.

"So what you're telling me is you panicked," he said at last, and Arthur became the one trying not to shout.

"I didn't _panic_ ," he said, when he was quite sure he had control over the volume of speech again. "I just —"

"I made you jump," Eames said with utter, sadistic glee, "and you panicked."

"Yeah, okay, fine. I panicked." Arthur sighed. "I can have some control over what Saito does just because of the distance involved... but Dom is another matter entirely."

"You think Dom would do something that would endanger me?" Eames frowned at that.

"No... yes... no. I mean not normally, but then as I thought about what this device can do..." Arthur's voice trailed off. 

"Just tell me, Arthur, for once. For once, please, fucking hell, don't make me fight for it."

"What if it could turn off all of Mal's mods? Or even just one? Using the whole-scale suppressor wouldn't work because well, it would shut ours off too. But this? It's portable. Selective."

Eames nodded his understanding.

"So... do I think that Dom would do anything, risk _anything_ to help Mal? You're fucking right I do."

"Yeah," Eames said at last, after a brief silence in which Arthur deliberately didn't look at him because he didn't _want_ to see Eames's thought processes flicker over into expressions. He didn't want to see what Eames _wasn't_ thinking, more importantly, because he had a suspicion it might make him unhappy rather than focused, and he couldn't afford that now, when he'd just managed to stop himself from indulging in successive bouts of incoherent word-flailing. "Yeah, he would."

Arthur sighed with something that was relief and regret and not-quite guilt, all at once. "Yeah. Which is why he can't know, not without —"

"Testing it. And it doesn't work on you, because you've only got the damaged mod. And it probably won't work on me, because it's not designed to include time-jack ports, and I’ve only got the one other. And we've got no-one else we can test it on without letting Dom know so he can, oh, let's think, design something really appalling and install it on us while we sleep, or install it on himself without telling anyone, or something just as bloody stupid. Well, fuck." Eames managed to look smug at his own deductions and vaguely sick at the knowledge Dom would, in fact, choose options A or B above sanity or discussion, all at the same time.

" _Thank_ you," Arthur said, exhausted, and leant into him, because Eames was warm, and apparently capable of not going to pieces when things were just fucking horrible, and just _there_ , which was in general a hell of a lot nicer than finding a wall — which might have been equally stable but was infinitely less reassuring in its presence. "Thank you so much for that incredible summary. Yes."

"So first thing we need to do, is get Saito over his new honesty kick," Eames said then, and Arthur lifted his head enough to look at him in horror.

"You want Saito to start lying to us again?"

"No," Eames said, making an appalled sort of face, but not moving away, for which Arthur was stupidly grateful. "Hell, no. But I think for all our sakes? He better start lying to Dom."

**


	2. Chapter 2

**v. {the darkness crush upon itself}**

Dominic Cobb had decided some time ago that he worked with the closest approximation he could imagine to a circus. A particularly sadistic circus, and its sole aim and purpose was to take what remained of his sanity and his will to live and very slowly shred both until they were nothing but dissolving vapours of imagination or dream. The whole thing was, if not ridiculous, at least irritating — or maybe absorbing and terrible and horrific were better descriptions. 

He was working with people he once would have ignored as beneath him, to find a way to kill the woman he loved and adored. And worse, he agreed that it was probably the only course that made any sense. 

Now, if he could only pull the nails out of his chest and the ice out of his spine, he might possibly get through this with a fairly large part of his humanity and sanity intact.

"I still think a frontal assault is a mistake. We're going to have to use a sniper or maybe Eames can impersonate one of the guards."

The nails had turned into fence posts, iron ones, and he could almost taste them as they danced through his brain.

"I can't just —"

"The holo mod does not —"

Eames and Yusuf, talking over each other very loudly to get to the same point, which could, Dom assumed, be summarised as 'no, Eames couldn't impersonate a guard, why are you all insane?'

It was a good question, and one to which, unfortunately, he didn't have an answer.

"If you need a sniper, though," Arthur said mildly, and Ariadne snorted.

"Oh, you just want to shoot people, you don't count."

"Be plenty enough before hand to satisfy even him," Eames ventured, his voice more mellow now. "I don't think this is going to work, Dominic. We're going to have to either try something less direct or have one hell of a load of back ups."

Dom rubbed one finger up and down in the middle of his forehead, trying to release some of the tension. "Look, all we have is us. What do you — 

"Not quite true," another voice interrupted. "You also have me."

Saito, of course.

"Yes, I thought we were doing this _for_ you," Arthur said, flatly snide. "That doesn't count."

It was hard to think of Saito as being flesh and blood at times. Now was not one of them, but then again, even as a supposed AI, Arthur had always managed to irritate the hell out of him. "That aside," he said, looking as though he had caught Dom's headache, "I am still possessed of most of the information you will require. Unfortunately, I do not as yet know which aspects are relevant, because your preparations are... diffuse."

"And you're suggesting that it's time that we 'fuse' them?" Arthur smirked. "We always work this way, Saito. Confusion and insults just seem to make the final product better."

"Fuse?" Eames silently mouthed the word back at Arthur, his face split in a large grin. Dom was about ready to slit both their throats and serve them up with a side of Ari and Yusuf.

"Still," he said, instead of pulling out his knife, "It wouldn't hurt to listen to any suggestions."

"I have one," Yusuf said, raising his hand as if he had joined a kindergarten class and needed to use the bathroom.

"Kill me now," Dom muttered.

"I think we should take a break," Yusuf continued serenely.

"We've only been meeting for _ten minutes_!" Dom yelled desperately.

"And as to that," Saito said quickly, "I do, in fact, have a suggestion that may help."

Dom waved a miserable hand at him. "Go on," he said. "You can't make it any worse."

"I suggest," Saito said carefully, "that you all remove yourselves from this — er — planet."

"If we go back to the space-station," Arthur said, "they'll want to take half the stuff we scavenged."

"Which is why I was thinking more of your coming to _my_ city," Saito said, voice and face utterly bland and impassive. "For convenience."

Dom watched Eames lean closer to Arthur and mutter, "Do we even know which city is his?"

"It's not here. It has to be an improvement," was Arthur's reply.

"I can also lead you to connections that will vastly expedite your salvage efforts at maximum profit." Saito added.

"Why would you do that?" Dom had to ask the question. 

"The sooner you have made those arrangements, the sooner you can deal exclusively with my own proposition."

Well, that made a kind of sense. In a vaguely logic-deprived and wholly selfish way.

There was also part of Dom's mind that was thinking _city_ , and wistfully travelling over images of hot water and new clothes and food that hadn't been processed at least six times and wasn't stale anyway, and — 

"Dom?" Ariadne said, and she looked as though she was feeling much the same. "I don't want to add to, you know, you having to think, but _please_ can we do this?"

"We might as well," Dom answered after another moment, during which he absolutely _was not_ thinking of clean sheets and a bed that was more than forty inches wide. "We can plan from there as well as here. Arthur, how long do you think it will take us to load up the stuff you've marked?"

"A day... maybe two." Arthur answered. "It's all stuff that's resalable as opposed to actual salvage, so we can't just dump it in."

"Can't we just do it very very quickly?" Eames asked. "It's not as if ordering it actually matters — ow, Arthur, shit, sorry —" But he was laughing.

"You're an underappreciative bastard, and you can fuck off and die any time you like," Arthur said, throwing Ariadne's scrib-pad at him. "Okay, a day. All right? A day, and we're _careful_."

"We'll label everything, in Standard and Onyx _and_ Higher Basic," Eames said solemnly, and then cackled. "Also, ow."

"Bastard," Arthur repeated.

"They can be color-coded according to type," Ariadne added, with straight-faced and evil glee. "With sub-categories denoted by type font." She held her solemnity for all of a heartbeat before snickering into her hand.

"Don't give him ideas," Eames fake-whispered.

"For fuck's sake —"

"Who, me?"

"Children!" Dom shouted, his eyes going wide when he realised that he'd actually said that out loud.

"Ah, sis, you've made daddy angry," Eames quipped, using his most upper class accent.

"Sowwy," Ariadne lisped, and added eyelash-batting to the effect. "But I'm on'y litwl."

Dom put his face in his hands and wished for unconsciousness.

"I am amazed by your forbearance in not drowning them at birth," Saito said dryly from somewhere above him.

"I didn't know them then, or I would have," Dom said to his hands with absolute truth, and this time it was Yusuf who laughed.

**

Saito had cleared off a large area of the landing field just for them, of course. First, because he was determined to meet them himself and his own security force was adamant on how it would be done, but second, because he wanted no interference from any... rival factions. He knew that Cobol had spies in his city. He knew them, knew their names and faces as if they were his own men, and carefully leaked information to them on a regular basis. It was, however, the independents that worried him more. Those who were, on the surface, loyal citizens, but would turn and sell information randomly for a profit, they were his true enemies.

He knew that not from intuition, but from observing — Cobb and his team had, after all, played the part of unquestioning loyalty for a long time before Cobol finally understood what they were dealing with, and Saito knew now first-hand how that long-term game was played.

The only difference had been in the nature of the ruling party, he told himself. No man living, knowing what Cobol was capable of, would have chosen to work with rather than against them. His more pragmatic approach, his implicit offer of a greater freedom, was something that even the most embittered of residents would understand.

Should understand.

But Yusuf was still an unknown quantity, and Ariadne was used to casual power, and Arthur's view of eliminating threats was as permanent as his mod-damage, and Eames was literal light-years from a time when he could be manipulated, and Saito was in a position where the only consistent variable in his figurations was Dominic Cobb, who was more than often working toward a hypothesis that had nothing to do with hard logic and cold fact, and everything to do with emotion and desire.

Saito interrupted his own private musing, stepping out of his luxurious hovercar as the Mandell and the cargo carrier landed in the area designated for them. The hatch of the Mandell almost seemed to hesitate before opening, showing the determined figure of Dom Cobb, but no one else.

 _Ah. They are still playing it careful._

A wise decision, Saito thought. It was much as he would have played it himself. He was almost willing to bet that Arthur had one or more weapons trained on him at this very moment. 

It was rather exhilarating.

"Dom, move it or lose it," said Ariadne's voice from inside the Mandell. "And stop posturing. You win all the dramatics, I'll get you a cookie later, now go talk to the nice man."

Saito did his best to maintain his stoic expression but he wasn't certain he succeeded. Miss Ariadne was indeed, a most amusing individual. Dom Cobb, on the other hand, had a good dose of mistrust and scepticism. It seemed to be a quite healthy combination. Cobb kept her grounded and she, apparently, kept him from being stodgy.

"You are quite safe, Mr. Cobb." Saito assured him, stepping forward. "If I had wanted you dead, I would simply have crashed your ship while I was in control of it."

"There is that..." Dom agreed, moving to meet him and signalling for the rest of his team to join them.

"You're much taller in person," Ariadne chuckled.

"I will take that as a compliment due," Saito said gravely, and she beamed at him, the look heartbreakingly familiar from his days as an AI, supervising her incredible learning curve aboard the space-station.

"Mr. Saito!" That was Yusuf's voice, coming from the cargo carrier. "A request, if you please —"

"Ah." Saito knew exactly what that would be. "Please. There will be no need for holos. Not in my city."

"Always knew I found arrogance attractive," Eames said happily from even further back than Yusuf.

"We're very sorry about him," Dom said, coming forward a little more. He was smiling. "Really."

"Hang on, what do you mean arrogance is attractive, what's that supposed to —" 

"Use your imagination, Arthur, I know you have one —"

"Both of them," Dom amended with a faint sigh.

Saito gave a slight bow of shared amusement, then held his hand out. "Welcome to Seisui, Mr. Cobb. Miss Ariadne... gentlemen... if you would care to step into my transport?"

Cobb took his hand, and if it seemed there might still be caution in his grasp, there was also no confrontation. Apparently, Mr. Cobb did not feel he had to prove anything. Saito approved of his handshake and matched it with the same pressure and strength.

"Do not drop the — why is caution such an unknown — oh dear," Yusuf said sadly, and came out of the carrier, blinking a little in the bright light. "You make me very sad. I hope you feel suitably guilty." He was carrying an assortment of bags over his shoulders, all of which looked as if they had been over-filled.

"Yeah, I'm drowning in it," Eames agreed, coming out behind him and equally loaded down. "Guilty and sadly sorrowful, that's me."

"You make a fine pack animal, Mr. Eames." Arthur was the last to appear, his hands, to all outward appearances, completely empty. Somehow Saito knew that this was as much an illusion as Eames's mods normally were.

Saito signalled his driver to help them load their bags into the back of the vehicle, then moved to hold the door for Ariadne to enter first. She instantly slid over to the far windowseat, peering out before they had even left the field.

"I can't wait to _see_ ," she said, sounding young and hopelessly eager. "I read some, of course, but seeing it —" Her hands came up, small and covered in small chemical scars, an oddly jarring note amidst her enthusiasm. Saito reminded himself to send people to her, later, perhaps even a skin-surgeon, if she wanted it.

A year ago, she would have demanded it. He no longer knew what she felt about the re-establishment of perfection.

Arthur, of course, remained in the rear, supervising the loading and waiting until everyone else had entered the vehicle — including Saito — before entering himself. If his own security team was as unobtrusively watchful, he would never have cause for complaint.

"I will arrange for a tour of the city, if you wish," Saito spoke mostly to Ariadne, but included the rest in his offer. "You will be here for some time at least, to prepare?"

Dom gave a small nod of agreement and Saito smiled to himself. If their point man was on edge, Dom Cobb was the picture of relaxation. This, the high class transport, the chauffeur, this was the style he was used to and it all settled back on him like a comfortable shoe.

Eames and Yusuf were amused and wary in equal measure, sharing some kind of private joke that Saito knew he would never understand.

"If I ruled the world, I think I would have an even larger car," Yusuf said dreamily, and Eames laughed.

"Oh Lords... just... would you please, please stop talking about your penis," Ariadne whispered urgently, and elbowed him in the ribs. 

For a child of the Ivory and Stone, Ariadne certainly seemed to have an earthy sense of humour.

"It's a very brief topic," Eames chuckled.

Or maybe it was just the company she kept.

"I will have you know," Yusuf began with a disturbingly solemn look, and Dom said with a quickness born of long and horrible experience — 

"No, Yusuf, we don't need to, it's really fine —"

"No no, go on," Ariadne said, sparing them both a wide-eyed glance of completely spurious innocence, before returning her gaze to the window.

"Er, that is, never mind," Yusuf said, subsiding into his seat and falling silent. Saito could not help but feel that this was probably a wise decision.

"And... I just have to say... wow..." They all turned to see what Ariadne was looking at.

"Ah, yes. As I said before... welcome to Seisui."

He was understandably proud of his city. There were no towering structures of stone and glass, no monumental artwork set up as edifices to his power. Instead, there were trees and rivers, the buildings nestled comfortably in amongst them as if they had grown from the same ground. Rather than displays of art, there were... surprises, shown randomly in places that they fit, rather than ones that were designed for them. Gone were the stringent delineations of caste... not erased, of course, even Saito hadn't managed that, but softened somehow — recognized and accepted rather than being a division.

"No holos," Eames said quietly.

"Indeed not," Saito said, and didn't even try to keep the pride from his voice. "I cannot forbid people to think. But I can certainly forbid them to act upon their thoughts. And I _do_."

"Arrogance is fucking scary, not attractive, Eames, you're batshit," Arthur said, but there was a small smile curving at the corners of his mouth. "And this is just another form of —"

"Arthur, don't spoil it. Just for once, eh?"

Saito was amazed at just how suddenly Arthur's mouth snapped shut. He had known the two men shared a friendship, as well as an attraction. He hadn't known quite how deeply it ran, but with the mouthy instructor pilot willingly quieted by Eames's request he was... enlightened.

"It's beautiful, Saito," Arthur said then, and this time, he let himself smile properly. "Beats three-day-old mouldy bread any day."

"Don't lie to him, you have a fetish," Eames chipped in, but Arthur just bumped his shoulder companionably into Eames's, and said — 

"Trees. Water. It's nice, shut up."

"Thank you." Saito inclined his head. "And I believe that we have arrived."

The transport was indeed slowing as they reached Saito's home.

Home was rather a humble word for something of that size, but to Saito that was exactly what it was. He had directed every step of its building, every line of its design. It was like living in your own treehouse, but anchored firmly to the ground.

He had designed it years before its foundations had been laid, in the days when he had truly believed anything was possible, that he could manage a war from a distance without regard for the consequences of peace, that he could convince the woman he loved that marriage was more than a prison of society's expectation, that he could remake all to the ethics he had never quite been able to put into words.

He had designed it before the birth of his daughter, before understanding that Kazue would never allow herself to love him and be his wife, before understanding that he could not have everything he wanted and keep the things he needed to survive and remain human.

He had designed it before he had learned what personal choice and cost meant, and it was the one visible memorial of all he had once thought possible.

Kazue preferred her freedom from status, from forced visibility at his side, from all the things that would have dictated her existence were she to marry him. All the things she would have been made to attend, all the things she would be expected to present herself at as something she was not — and by remaining free from him legally, she was free to express her support and her love and the essential nature of her presence in his life in a way that she could live with — and so it remained undiminished.

The house was a living witness to all that he had slowly and painfully learned would never come to pass — a dreamt perfection that the rest of the world had forgotten he had ever desired.

And much to his chagrin, only Ariadne and Dom seemed interested in it. Yusuf was more concerned with collecting his bags, Eames was not-helping him, and Arthur had got out of the other side of the car and was looking out across the edge of the long prospect.

He wondered what Kazue would make of them, when she finally had her fill of observing from a distance, and looked forward to her insights.

But for now — he was playing the host, assuaging their worries, assuring them of their safety, and to do that, he knew, he would have to go along with the attitudes they were choosing to take.

"It's not a port," Arthur said, and for once, he sounded genuinely impressed. "It's a _sea_."

"It is," Saito confirmed. "And relatively calm in this season. During the winter storms the waves can rise high enough to wash over this pathway."

"I think I like your city, Saito," Arthur offered him the courtesy with a small smile, "and your home." 

"Watch what you're doing there!" Yusuf sounded more than a bit agitated. 

"Excuse me," Arthur dashed off to soothe the way between Yusuf and some of Saito's people.

Eames, showing no signs of moving to take off his buckled jacket, despite the warm day, came back and leant against the car, tilting his head up towards the overhanging branches and closing his eyes.

Saito decided it was better not to enquire. 

There were more times than he would have liked when that was true, even though sometimes he would have liked to ask, to know what they were thinking, to give his own explanations in return.

To say _I, too, know the cost of love. I know the joy of it and the gifts it brings. I do not hold it as cheaply as you think._

"Wow!" That was Ariadne again. "You have to see, it's amazing. There's a creek that bubbles right down the hillside, under the house, and comes out here, and then it flows out and over the cliff and straight down into the sea. I would so love to use that in a design sometime, except, huh, it's already been done, but I could modify it —"

"The sound of the water is very restful." Saito told her, wondering if any sort of response was actually required and not particularly caring as long as he got her train of thought to fall back into the internal variety rather than the kind they all had to pay attention towards. He wished that she considered silence to be as important as the sharing of her torrential imaginings. "That is why I chose this spot between the sea and the hill."

"Which is awesome, yeah, it's a great choice, but I was thinking, have you thought about using anti-grav mods at places so you get a natural reflective —"

"Shush, listening," Eames said, apparently agreeing with Saito's assessment of what Ariadne needed to do, and he was smiling, quiet and private. Ariadne shut up, looking a little offended, and then went wide-eyed.

" _Oh_ ," she said.

"Yeah," Eames agreed.

"I am not Atlas, thank you all very much, Arthur _leave that alone_ , could I please get some help?" Yusuf demanded. "Useful help, thank you, throwing things onto this very nice lawn does not in any way count."

"Shhhh..." Eames and Ariadne both shushed him.

"Well, excuse me. I thought we were here to —"

"In a moment, Yusuf," Dom put one hand on Yusuf's shoulder. "Take some time... just a moment."

Even Arthur had stopped. From the uneasiness of his stance, however, Saito was certain that it would not last long.

"What are we —" Arthur started, and then stopped, utterly abrupt and surprised. "Oh," he said then, sounding as young as Ariadne. "Oh. Well, I suppose that's very _clever_ , Saito, but —"

"Arthur," Dom said gently, "at the risk of being repetitive, shut up, please. Or go look at the sea. Swim in it. Try and ionize it. Shoot it. I don't much care. Just shut up."

There was the cry of seabirds, from somewhere close by.

" _Ah_ ," said Yusuf.

"No holos," Eames said again. Ariadne smiled, and leant her head on Dom's arm, small and contented and utterly at home inside her skin and with her surroundings.

"Good. That's how it should be. _This_ is how it should be, it's alive, and we are, and it's good."

"We're going to _win_ ," Dom said out of nowhere, unrelated and fierce and definite for the first time in a year.

Saito blinked. Once. And then smiled.

_Its ponds are full of fishes and its lakes of birds. Its fields are green with grass and its banks bear dates. He who lives there is happy. And the poor man is like the great elsewhere._

The time-soldiers' paradise. And he had created it. He had created it from and for love.

_Truly fitting, then, that I brought them here, that this should be the first part of my world they experience for themselves._

"I _like_ winning," Arthur said then, into the middle of relative peace, his voice too-bright and contained. His teeth showed in a small tight grin. "I'm _good_ at it."

Saito expected some snappy comeback from one of them, but instead Eames held out an arm, and murmured something, and Arthur came to him, and leant in, and his terrible smile faded.

And then Saito knew that whatever happened, whether they won or lost, he would never forget what he heard next.

"Come back to me," Arthur said, the words small and bitten in his mouth. "Always."

"Wake up with me, then," Eames replied. "Wake up with me, we promised, so you have to..."

"Always," Arthur said on a sigh of air, and Ariadne smiled in closed-up contentment, and Dom Cobb put a hand out in benediction, and Yusuf laughed.

And the sea-birds cried, high and mournful, above and behind and beyond them.

**

The city-planet of Seisui really was a remarkable place, Ariadne had to admit. On the surface you would think that all the trees and rivers running through things would give you the impression that you were out in the countryside and away from civilization. It was all just a veneer. Everything looked natural and primitive, but nothing really was. Saito's home had every luxury you could wish for and, if it wasn't exactly like her own home, the differences were more of the delightful kind than the annoying kind.

Saito was an amazing host, providing anything needed with a smile and a gracious nod of the head. As a matter of fact, he was so provident that she finally had to tell him that, yes, really, she enjoyed shopping and would really much rather wander through the shops on her own than have everything she even mentioned wanting appear in her room the same day.

She had expected Kazue, the woman they met so rarely, to have more of a say in her behaviour — a kind of female solidarity that she always resented when it was forced upon her — but Kazue's attention was all for Saito and their daughter, a most private thing that made Ariadne feel like an intruder even for speaking to her in their moments of passing.

So it was all left to her to explain what she could not accept, and did not want to.

She got the feeling that all she did was confuse Saito utterly, but since that wasn't a new state of being for him since their arrival, she didn't bother paying too much attention to the slight twinge of conscience that gave her, the old inbuilt rules of courtesy and guest-like behaviour pricking up like thorns through the cover of her year of learning who and what she was, and leaving her feeling a little raw, as though she were somehow betraying something by insisting on independent action, on comparative solitude.

What he took for granted in Kazue, the inner determination and silent, autonomial decision-making, referring to nothing and no-one but the ordering of her own life, was not, she suspected, something he expected in anyone else, be they male or female. Kazue was his rarity, his one permitted deviance.

_"I cannot forbid people to think. But I can certainly forbid them to act upon their thoughts. And I do."_

But he did not forbid Kazue, or his daughter, who prayed during the last soft rays of evening light at her mother's side, to act upon either thoughts or beliefs, and in a world supposedly free from such gestures, he made no mention of it.

But would he permit the same from Ariadne, would he continue to permit her independence, when he finally understood how deeply they ran, how these small gestures were only the faint outward showings of her own deep-held beliefs — not rudeness, not dislike, but simply a need to retain her own thoughts and deeds for herself, now that they had no need to fear the rules of the space-station or the demands of Cobol's society?

Would he, in the end, forbid her to act?

But he showed no signs of it, even as the days began to pass before them, and time lengthened outward into a period that Ariadne was beginning to understand was something Saito thought of as _convalescence_ , a lengthened, time-stopped moment for them to catch their breath, remember who they were, clean themselves of more than the dirt and metal-stench and bitterness of the last year.

But it was still tempting. Tempting to let him feel that he was doing something for her, tempting to feel she was playing the right part.

She wondered each and every time that she shook her head with a smile, and went her own way, if perhaps she should give in to his kindness.

And when she felt those moments of doubt, when she wondered if perhaps she should simply give in, let him give her whatever he wanted to, like a girl from an old story with an enchanted castle at her disposal, she looked down at the one cut on the palm of her hand that she had not allowed anyone to heal or graft over; looked at its slow scab-peel and the pink new scarring, and pricked a little more ink into the tender skin; brought blood to the surface in tiny increments and rubbed some of the ash she had taken from the dead planet over the almost invisible wounds. 

And each time she did so, she forced herself to remember Yusuf's words, the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes, and the hot, arid wind of the dead planet, the choking, heavy air of the 'Boneyard' as it surrounded them both. 

She remembered the feel of his hand, the way he had enclosed her fingers in his, the strange sensation of safety and belonging and comprehension, and when that became too much of a comfort, she made herself remember Eames and Arthur instead, fighting in the dust and ash over something she didn't want to understand, then or now. 

She remembered Eames's missing jacket, the scrapes on Arthur's hands. She remembered all of it, and pressed the ash in harder as she did so.

_We thought they were abominations who wanted us dead. They thought we were scum who didn't deserve oxygen-use._

_Your people._

Her people, who had taken beliefs and young men and hope, and warped them all out of recognition in the belief that they truly knew what was best for everyone else, basing it not on experience, but on treatises and false rationale.

_Your people._

"Not any more," Ariadne said to her reflection each time she thought of how easy it would be to give in, to be pampered and protected and indulged once again, and slip back into the safety of theory and dream and idea-spinning. "Never again."

She kept the one mark, her own peculiar tattoo of remembrance, not of a place or a person, but of a new stage of being or perhaps enlightenment; a reminder and a warning to her as to how lost one could become, in ways that did not involve mods or insanity or even time-ports, but simply ignorance of what one had; ignorance of what power was; ignorance she could no longer claim. She had truly, she hoped, had the veil of her station lifted from her eyes. 

Somehow it even enhanced the enjoyment she got out of shopping, to know that rather than someone providing for her, she actually had her own funds and skills to barter. It was all incredibly satisfying.

And because secrets would always intrigue her, enough that she used to invent some to discover, in the days before the space-station and the need for real concealment and the terrifying consequences of discovery, she watched the others around her as they found their own level of equilibrium, and was amused and intrigued in equal measure.

She watched Dom, who had never been able to adjust to the space-station because he had never needed to learn the importance of his work or the value it could have, finally learning to incorporate his grief into his life, because now he had been given a way of making it a tangible mourning. He could hold conversations now without the effort being noticeable, lost his train of thought less frequently, was no longer the living avatar of devastation.

He was more and more the man she remembered, who could charm and absorb those around him with his ideas and his intensities. Grief no longer hollowed him out, but added a new layer to his mind-set, deepened what she now realised had been an almost facile intelligence that held no concept of cost or loss within its dazzling quickness.

She had almost forgotten why they had followed him, right at the beginning, and it was a strange pleasure for her to not only remember, but to see the others remember too; to watch as a layer of wariness she hadn't even truly been aware of fell away.

Arthur had become beach obsessed. 

Well, outside-obsessed was more accurate, and the most understandable part of it, given how trapped they had all been for the past year, but there was more to it than that. He was spending hours of every day lying on the beach, or walking along it, gathering seashells or driftwood, or, if the day was too warm, wading in the dappled water of the creek that flowed beneath Saito's home, picking up odd looking stones. He used all his gathered bits to construct fantastic creatures, leaving them for the local children that somehow seemed to watch him whenever he came out, never approaching, but always there.

Ariadne had no idea what he was doing. She had always collected things herself, but to keep, to build, to think about and dream on. Arthur didn't seem to care — he didn't care who watched him and he didn't bother about the results of whatever it was he was trying to achieve, and she realised that he was the one, out of all of them, that she was never going to understand at all. 

If he'd been with her in the towers, she would have assumed he was working on some concept of mutability; if it had been Eames, she would have known damn well that he was playing the Pied Piper with his constructs and whatever innocuous appearance would appeal to the children. Yusuf would have been making his fantastic little creations, only to tear down something bigger later on, based on the same designs.

But Arthur remained separate, detached, oddly intangible in this most visible of connections with the world around him. The man who could not see illusion was creating his own, and much though Ariadne loved secrets, she felt that this was not one she should attempt to decipher.

And if the children merely watched Arthur, leaving him to himself, they had no such compunctions when it came to Eames. When he came outside in the morning to join Arthur on the beach, it wasn't unusual for him to arrive with two or three youngsters wandering in his wake like baby ducklings. And Eames, the man who referred to adults as darling and kitten and love, seemed to know every one of their names.

Freed from the need for disguise, Eames was no longer any kind of enigma. 

He was blunt and kind and reasonably good-natured even when his patience was clearly running out; he answered questions or simply refused to as he considered appropriate or felt inclined. He would end a day abruptly and gain no ill-will from the children or from Arthur; go to Yusuf and help create destruction with as much ease as he bullied Dom out of his sudden moments of evidently false serenity. He went with Ariadne into the markets and haggled for her; was better than her and worse than her all at once and laughed at himself with an ability she envied.

And now, finally, she could see the one thing the holos had kept from her — not his appearance, for contrary to what Yusuf had said, that had troubled her very little after her initial anger at his assumptions — but something far more integral.

Eames paid attention to the outside world, and was better at it, perhaps, than even vigilant Saito. But his _focus_ , his inner world, was turned only one way, and Ariadne suspected had been so for a long time.

Eames's inner eye turned towards Arthur, and that had been the one thing the holos had _needed_ to conceal for him — for them both.

Before Seisui, it would have been the one thing that was truly not safe for him to reveal, for that — that, Ariadne knew, was his genuine weakness, could have been used against him in a thousand ways that she didn't want to consider.

And as with all things that should have been self-evident before, and were now revealed in this world of water and living things, she wondered how she could possibly not have known what she was looking at.

The only one who seemed unchanged by their change in circumstances was Yusuf, dear, terminally distracted Yusuf. Give him a puzzle and he'd spend days on it, figuring it out and rebuilding it to suit another purpose altogether.

After the first week, Ariadne was certain that it was only Saito's inbred politeness that kept him from shooting the man. After two weeks, Saito merely twitched whenever Yusuf looked at something in his home with more than a passing interest. Ariadne wasn't sure if that was a sign of resignation or merely desensitization.

"No, not my office," Saito would say daily, herding Yusuf away to something less likely to provoke murder. So far it was working, but Ariadne knew that there would be some kind of explosion one night and everyone would know why, and never quite work out _how_.

She hoped Yusuf let her in on it, when he was ready. Because more and more, she realised that she was waiting on him to make a move, and not on her own decisions. It wasn't about her, it wasn't about what she wanted, it wasn't about whether she decided she wanted something or nothing with him.

It wasn't her choice to make, any more, because she had already made it, almost without noticing; perhaps while she slept, perhaps on the planet that was made of dead time and ashes, perhaps in the back of Saito's hovercar, or when listening to the water that belonged to an impossible paradise. But she had made it, and she was oddly content to wait for what might or might not come next.

The knowledge that she had the capacity for this, now, that she had gained the ability to pause as well as to fly, was oddly liberating.

**

There was something unusually peaceful about sharing a sunrise with Dom Cobb. The man sat, half waking and half asleep, a cup of coffee balanced loosely in one hand while he stared blankly out over the waves and toward the horizon. Saito wondered if he had actual thoughts during that time, or if it were merely a way for his waking subconscious to process life.

"You prefer coffee." 

"Wha—? Oh... um... usually. Tea just doesn't seem to wake me up." Dom leaned forward and warmed up his cup from the pot on the table.

"It does not appear that the coffee is doing so either."

Dom's expression was an odd cross between amused and annoyed. "I'm awake," he said at last. "I don't see why I need to prove it by talking."

 _Unlike everyone else I brought here,_ Saito finished off mentally. 

He'd assumed, on their arrival, that the carefully constructed peace of his home had affected them, that the silent appreciation of that first day was something that would last.

It had lasted for approximately two hours, in fact, and the only thing he could rely on was that at least no-one seemed particularly inclined to stay within his walls to inflict their non-stop communication skills on his haven.

"Most people do." Saito continued, madly tempting fate.

"And by people you mean Ari, Yusuf, Arthur and Eames." Dom snuffled out a laugh. "It's a habit I have never been able to break them of. If you manage it you're a better man than I."

"You see yourself as a father to them?"

"I see myself as the sole responsible adult," Dom corrected him. "Mostly. Well, sometimes." He shrugged. "Or at least, they seem to see me that way. Usually it just makes me feel old."

"This I can understand." Saito nodded slowly. _Or the 'old' part, at least,_ he silently amended, thinking that Dom might well be wrong as to how he was actually perceived by his crew in terms of relative responsibility.

As to old — well. That he most certainly understood, and from personal experience, since he frequently felt that way when his daughter was in the room. Although she was well-mannered and well-behaved, she contained an endless energy that he simply could not match. Kazue called it 'the biter bit', reminded him of his own youth, and he always conceded the point — to her, though he sincerely doubted he had ever flown so high, even when he was a boy himself.

"I doubt it," Dom said, and went back to staring out at the horizon.

Saito was getting used to many things. He was getting used to the fact that he no longer had anything approximating a private sanctuary. He was becoming more familiar than he would have really liked with the constant invasion of his every room, with the constant noise, with the fact that no-one seemed capable of going to find someone, but simply shouted their name very loudly until they got a response. He was even getting used to Yusuf's desire to take everything that wasn't nailed down and begin experimenting on it, or with it, or with _parts_ of it.

He would never get used to being dismissed as though what he had to say was unimportant.

He also had learned, in the time since Cobb's surrogate family had arrived in his home, far too much about their personal likes and dislikes. He knew that Yusuf and Ariadne both loved food of all kinds and would eat or at least try almost anything that was placed in front of them, in large quantities. Ariadne, however, would then complain about its effects on her weight and swear that she was never going to eat again, and would berate Yusuf for allowing her to do so at all, which had no effect on the designer whatsoever.

He learned that Eames loved being touched, but always seemed to be slightly surprised when someone did so. Whether that was a result of being so long hidden behind holographic displays and sensors, or something in his psyche, Saito didn't know.

Arthur was a bit more difficult to understand, calm and cool, but with a biting sense of humour that he did not fear to use. He seemed to be more hidden, in some ways, than Eames ever thought of being, for all his talking. 

Dom, though — Dom was a mystery. He did not speak of himself, but seemed to have a layer of sadness woven around him like a cloak. For all his warmth, and often unthinking kindness, he was very, very private.

"You may find, Mr. Cobb, that we have more in common than you think."

"Unlikely." But Dom's smile took a lot of the sting out of the curt little word. "You have your child here, on Seisui. You have Kazue to love and be loved by. You rule a city-planet. You want to start a war. And I — have none of those things. What could we possibly have in common? Perhaps we did, once. But not now, Saito. Not now, not ever again."

Private, Saito amended in some surprise, and perceptive with it.

He had not thought that Dom would have even let Kazue into his peripheral awareness — but of course, the one thing Dominic Cobb could never ignore was love. In the same way that a familiar scent caught the attention in an unfamiliar room, so Kazue's infrequent and often mostly invisible visits to the house, and his own response to her, would have instantly crossed Dom's radar.

"It is true that I have my family around me... but so do you," Saito continued. "Perhaps not all of it and certainly not the ones that you have the most concern for, but family just the same. And although Kazue is here with me, there are many things that conspire to keep us apart, outside... things." He did not care to elaborate on that score, on why Kazue was merely his mistress in spite of their deep love, and not his wife after so many years.

Dom looked at him with narrowed eyes, assessing something Saito was not quite sure of, and then nodded. "Even you can't eliminate all prejudice, then."

"No. I can ensure it will not affect my daughter. But for myself — it would be a misuse of my power. I cannot eradicate barriers and have it perceived as an act of personal gain."

"So you'll make yourself the only one who won't gain from it? That's self-defeating, not selfless."

"So I have told Kazue," Saito said dryly, and Dom breathed out a laugh.

" _Ah._ Not your choice, after all."

"Not my choice," Saito agreed. "She prefers what freedom she can retain and still be with me."

"But you would marry her — still? If you could? If she changed her mind?"

"Of course." Saito was not even offended by the question. He might have been from any of the others, but from Dom, who viewed marriage in much the way Saito had before he was taught that on Seisui, even as its City-master, he was demanding the last remaining impossibility, it was simple curiosity.

It was inoffensive, and not even prying or too forwardly curious; not even a wish for an exchange of confidences. Just a question.

"But you're happy." And that wasn't a question at all. Saito inclined his head, giving and needing to give no other answer.

They sat in silence again, the sun having risen to a respectable distance over the horizon. 

"I also do not wish to start a war." Saito thought some clarification was in order.

"Then why? Why drag us into this?" It was not an accusation, thankfully, just a request for more information. 

"I do not wish for more power, if that is what you are thinking," Saito said quickly. "But neither will I allow Cobol to eradicate my attempts to place people on a more even scale."

"And the best defence..." Dom said thoughtfully, and Saito nodded.

"Quite. I cannot fight beliefs on one hand and an army on the other. One takes time, and if I allow the other to retain its power, I will never possess it. So I will destroy Cobol, and create a world. It seems to me a fair trade."

"It seems to be," Dom agreed, but Saito was aware that it was not the same as an agreement to his ethos. "But I can't agree with war, Saito."

"Yet you agree to destruction."

Dom smiled. "Of course," he said. "I can't not. I'm a creator. I have to believe that the reverse of that is just as necessary."

The silence this time was more thoughtful, more contemplative.

"I suppose the idea of fighting for peace is a contradictory concept?" 

"Yes, yes it is. Especially when, to do so, you've brought my brand of insanity into your home." Dom's voice was almost amused.

Saito's lips twitched into a smile, "Everyone has their own type of peace. I do not ask it to be the same as mine."

Dom sighed quietly. "But Saito. That's exactly what you _are_ asking. And if we have to come to terms with that — so do you."

Was that what he was doing? He had never thought so. Rather, he thought —

"No. I just wish to give everyone the chance to choose. Do you think that Cobol does? Truthfully?"

He had his answer in the way Dom's face shuttered and darkened, long before he spoke.

"No," Dom said. "But Saito — _nor did I_. Nor do I, that isn't what my skills are _for_. Choosing means that there's an alternative, even if it's vile. I create perm-mods. Permanent. And once they're installed, there's no going back unless it's to take them out completely. Oh, you can _not_ use them, you can keep them neutralised, but — that's not a choice. Yusuf — Yusuf, though, what he does —"

"You think I should make peace temporary? You think that would be — _better_?"

"I think you need to accept that very few things ever are," was all Dom replied. "You're a city-master, Saito. You make the choices. Just like I do. And then we watch what happens when we succeed, and when we fail." He smiled, suddenly. "You were right. You were right after all. We have a lot in common."

They both turned their faces back toward the sea.

**

**vi. {then turn, have courage}**

The sun was warm, unlike the cold burning of the suns that passed over the Gates Planet, and it glittered down over the beach below Saito's home like a gentle benediction. The waves at this time of day, more a gentle roll than an agitated crash, as if the sea itself knew how much its visitors appreciated the peace. Arthur lay in the sun, long wiry limbs stretched out above and below, while Eames sat next to him, his eyes travelling between the surf and his companion. 

"Better watch out, darling, you're going to lose that carefully calculated pallor." Eames ran his hand over Arthur's shoulders, enjoying the feel of radiant heat.

"And wouldn't that be a tragedy," Arthur said dryly, but he smiled, a slow look that did not fade instantly. Overt expression of any emotion was something there had never seemed to have been time for, in the days of the space-station, something Eames had not realised was even gone, until Seisui and its reappearance. 

Arthur's expressions had turned into something rare, in the last year, quick movements like those of a passing breeze over still water, surface flickers that touched nothing underneath it. Eames hadn't realised he had missed what had been the comparative openness of before, hadn't realised he'd even noticed the change until Seisui, and Saito's gift of time.

"Generations would mourn," Eames agreed, too lazy to bother with anything but faint sarcasm. "Not me, I'd be too busy pointing and laughing at your fried state, but generations. Long, long in the future generations. Generations who have no idea how stupid you look when you're sunburned."

"Or you could make yourself useful and put sunscreen on my back," Arthur slapped the container, which had somehow retained its morning chill, down on Eames's bare leg.

Eames chuckled and moved to do so, "You don't need an excuse to get me to run my hands all over your body, you know? I'll volunteer anytime."

"Maybe later..." Arthur yawned.

It was nice to feel that lazy, Eames thought, to feel as if there were always enough time for everything they wanted. There was always a 'later' these days, no more rushed encounters hidden away in what little privacy they had, brief physical satisfaction the only possible goal, and that lacking in everything that could be satisfying.

Instead, they had time to learn the details of each others' bodies; learn how to draw out pleasure or to burn with it, hard and fast. 

There were no deadlines, no work shifts to prepare for, no space to share. They had time for exploration, for curiosity, unbelievably, at times, for laughter; time to build up to an all-consuming awareness of each other. And all of it, now, came from choice and passion, not expediency.

Time. 

Time, no longer a thief or a potential mark, to be stolen from or resented or seen as a threat, but something that existed, passed, lay inert and accepting and was woven throughout the days. 

Time, no longer the enemy because it had no power in Seisui, because in Saito's hands it had never been used or corrupted or torn apart for its fibres.

Power might corrupt, and Saito might have power over time, here on his city-planet of water and glass and whispering leaves, but he had never turned his corruption outwards to that most essential of all things; the slow and natural passage of what was yet to be or what might come, the rendering of future into present, the relinquishment of present into past.

Saito knew peace on its most intrinsic level, the knowledge of a man who had always observed and comprehended and never experienced a phenomenon for its own sake — and knowing it for what it was, he offered it up freely as something he did not possess.

Saito the City-Master, who wore his power lightly when he chose to show it at all.

 _Benefactor,_ Ariadne had said on their first night there, looking out at the endless dark of the ocean. _Benediction, benison. Do you think he knows what he's giving?_

It had been tempting to think of it like that, as some unasked for treasure, but — 

_It's how he's bought us,_ Dom had said without resentment, and that was as true as Ariadne's delight. _This is our payment._

Dom had always been the one who knew about balancing cost, even in the beginning, who had known despite all his wealth and all his entitlements of status what was due to him and what he owed to others, in the great bargaining-place that was the world of politics and power.

Somehow, though, this time, Eames realised, it didn't bother him to think he'd sold himself. 

In spite of its gilding, Seisui was not a cage. They, any one of them, all of them, 

(two of them, three)

could leave at anytime. Saito might try to dissuade them, but he would not use force like Cobol would. 

Like Cobol _had_.

Of course... where would they go that could be better?

He finished rubbing the sunscreen over Arthur, taking great care and admitted pleasure in assuring himself he hadn't missed a single spot. "All done, love."

Arthur made a sort of sleepy noise that could have meant either 'thanks', or 'this stuff is disgusting and now it's all over me', or possibly that he was thinking about lunch and didn't care what Eames did with the sunscreen as long as he made sure Arthur was awake in time to eat something before the gannets commonly known as the Ari-and-Yusuf team of food-inhalation descended.

Arthur viewed everything as simple fuel, and Eames didn't much care one way or another what was available, and Dom usually had to be reminded that eating was necessary to survival, so it was fairly irrelevant to him unless he _really_ wanted to be left alone with whatever he was doing, but Ariadne viewed their new access to actual food with a terrible glee, and Eames was pretty sure Yusuf was working out every single recipe so he could do something — Yusuf-ish — to it.

They also seemed to have left their collective manners, such as they had ever been, behind on the space-station, which was pretty much a dead giveaway that Ariadne was the only one being honest about how she felt with regard to food being there at all, rather than ration bars and supplements and the endless raw sugar-spirits, when it came down to it.

Mealtimes tended to make Saito look as though he had died and gone to Hell.

Or possibly that Yusuf had given him a weight reduction mod that made everything look like maggots and worms. 

He really shouldn't gloat over the idea of someone ruffling Saito's feathers. Saito had been good for them over all, Arthur's relaxed state being one of his greater accomplishments, even if it was the atmosphere rather than Saito directly that had caused it.

It was so far from the Arthur that Eames had first met so long ago that, had he not been there to witness the transformation, he might not have recognized him as the same man. 

The Arthur he had met in the bar down past the Horn Gate, whose main attribute had been suspicion of everything and everyone around him, and a readiness to dispose of it if it happened to move wrongly, was as utterly removed from both the man who had held everyone together on the space-station, and the one who now lay in the sun and knew how to smile long enough that people saw him do so, as Eames could have ever imagined.

Of course, he himself was a far cry from that underfed, almost desperate man, hiding behind a shoddy black market mod that was intended to make him look like less of both and completely unlike the time-soldier that was no longer even supposed to exist. He'd been scrounging for work, any kind of work, physical or mental, that would put money in his pocket and food in a stomach that kept growling loud enough to almost give his game away.

And Arthur, who had seen him for what he was in the sad little bar, Arthur who could not see illusion or holos, who had once chosen that life to kill men like Eames, had never even shown by a flicker of his eyelids that he knew what he was looking at, only tapped out the quick small code onto the battered, sticky marble as he waited for his drink; had tapped it out with his long killer's fingers, over and over again until Eames was forced to acknowledge what he was seeing.

_You're made. Get out._

City-Corps code. Eames had learned it from necessity, Arthur to communicate.

Their first ever encounter had been a warning that Arthur didn't even need to give him, a courtesy Eames had forgotten even existed.

Cit-honour, high-born honour, found in a bar that belonged to the Onyx and Horn and worse even than those.

It had shocked him so much that, even though he'd cut his losses and left the bar, he'd loitered in the area, waiting for the man to leave so he could trail him, his curiosity outweighing even his hunger. He'd followed Arthur through two gates and several levels before Arthur turned to face him.

"You know, it would be very rude to try to mug the guy who just helped you out." Arthur said with a dry expression.

"Well, yeah, but I don't do polite."

"Learn." It hadn't been a suggestion. It hadn't been much of anything. "And stop using black-market shit. The decays will kill you. Eventually."

"Oh, because you can tell what I'm —"

"No. Because I can't see them. I can see you. And you can't afford anything good."

 _I can't see them._ Arthur's whole damn story, right there, and he'd barely had the wits to comprehend it.

"You can see me?" Eames could only repeat the dreaded phrase. "You can see me and..."

The thought had him scrambling for his knife, the only weapon he had managed to hold on to. This high-born, City-Corps officer could see him, see his face and his tattoos. What the fuck was he going to do?

"Whoa," Arthur said, holding his hands out to show they were empty. As if that were any reassurance, Eames's brain had supplied at the time, well aware of at least two weapons the man could get to before Eames could make a move with his knife. "I'm hardly going to tip you off in the bar and then try to kill you here, am I? Besides, I believe that _you_ followed _me_."

"It might've been to kill you," Eames pointed out, and Arthur somehow managed to convey _sure, dream on,_ without moving an inch. "Okay, it might've been because I was curious, too."

"Isn't there a saying about that and cats?" Arthur was still impassive, but Eames got the feeling he was deeply amused by the concept.

"Satisfaction, too," Eames agreed, oddly happy, because fuck, it had been _so long_ since he'd been able to have this sort of half-threatening give-and-take where no-one was impressed by anyone else.

And somehow that had been the start of a friendship, as unlikely as it was. 

Arthur had provided him with some legitimate job leads and introduced him to Yusuf because "Really, Eames, those black market temp-mods are shit." What Arthur had gotten out of the whole thing, Eames still couldn't put his finger on, but he seemed satisfied with the inequality of it.

 _Satisfaction, too,_ he had said of that doomed cat. Maybe it wasn't his own that Arthur had been concerned with.

He'd let it go.

Dom Cobb _hadn't_. Dom had wanted to use him from the start, and Eames would have been happy to, if only for the pay, but Arthur had been cagey — _Dom can't know, he's not —_ he'd tried to explain once, and Eames had known well enough where that sentence was headed, because brilliant as Dom was and rich as Dom was, there were some things that didn't need going into.

Not Corps, not a soldier, not from the war. And Yusuf's reaction when he first saw Eames had been bad enough, even though he tried to make up for it with the offer of a room and some of the best temp-mods Eames had ever encountered. He didn't feel like going through seeing that look on anyone's face again in his lifetime, if he could avoid it.

And time, time the thief rather than the friend, had passed and given him Yusuf's friendship as an apology that was better than anything he had dreamed of, and Arthur had brought him in on a job, _finally_ , and, like some prize at the end of that bewildering year, there had been Mal. Mal who used mods as easily and lightly as she decorated her home, wore her status, loved Dom and her children. Extravagant, wonderful Mal, who knew how to love and how not to ask questions. Time, which had seemed like a gift in those heady, halcyon days, stealing everything from them as it ran before the cold suns, passing through the Ivory Gate and bringing them Ariadne.

Bringing them Ariadne and her dreams, and taking Mal in exchange, as a terrible barter for Cobol's dead schemes.

But all of it, good and bad, had brought them here. Here to Saito's home, where they could take the time to discover where they were and where they wanted to be. Where they could take the time to actually show each other what the promises they'd made could actually mean. Where he could tell Arthur thank you, and love him, and bully him, and just be with him, with no one to tell them that they were too different or too mismatched or just too, too, something, to ever be what they already knew they were.

So, when Arthur turned his head, smiled and said, "Should be lunch time soon," Eames knew exactly what he meant.

"Should be, think it will be, is time working today?" he teased, and Arthur laughed soundlessly, that part of his outward demonstration unchanged wherever they were. Real amusement, like all things Arthur truly felt, was something hushed and usually silent; the stillness of the perpetual observer forever undisturbed into audibility.

Eames looked down the beach, seeing four figures heading their way — a man, older, Eames guessed by his movements, and three children, two girls and a younger boy. The man looked familiar, but the distance was still too great for Eames to be sure.

"Arthur, we appear to have company," Eames said quietly. It shouldn't mean any danger, but old habits were so very hard to break.

"And this is my life," Arthur said, sounding utterly fed up, and sitting up in one quick movement that should never have been possible, given his relaxed state seconds before. "And... no, I'm not seeing a threat. Whoever they are, they're who they are, can we — _fuck_."

"Any time," Eames said automatically, because some things he couldn't _not_ say, and then, "Ow," as Arthur smacked him over the head. "Sorry. What is it?"

Three children, one older man, probably someone's grandfather, then, why should that worry — 

"Oh no," he said very quietly.

Because the quartet walking up the beach — or perhaps wandering was a better term, considering the antics of the children - in their direction consisted of Miles, Philippa, James and Yumi, Saito's daughter. 

Which was just a completely disorientating sight, and would have made Eames question Saito's city-wide ban on illusion-mods, if not for the fact that Arthur could obviously see them too.

"Fuck."

"I believe I said that." Arthur ground out. 

They had been missing and none of Dom's contacts had been able to trace them. That hadn't necessarily been a bad thing, because if Dom couldn't trace them, then the probability was that Mal had also been unable to, and Dom had refused to believe that Cobol would lock them up or kill them that untraceably. Cobol would have used them as a bargaining chip, to get Dom to return.

"Arthur... they can't see me." Eames suddenly felt frantic. "They... they haven't before. I don't want to scare the children."

Yumi, of course, had seen him several times, on her visits to what was apparently only one of Saito's many homes, because apparently keeping her from being at her father's side for any length of time was an utter impossibility. 

She was anything but afraid of him, but then she had been raised here on Seisui, where differences were more accepted and indeed usually insisted upon — whereas Philippa and James were Gate-children, saw difference as imperfection, had breathed their first air in a world that allowed no divergence — and they knew nothing of scars or ash-markings or the old Corps. 

They only knew him as their father's friend, Eames, whose face changed with every visit, had once loved the fact they had to be re-introduced to him every time (and sometimes demanded he came to see them as people they knew, finding it all a game). They had loved to guess the character of the form he wore, treated it all as an ongoing saga for their own amusement. They knew him as the man their mother had called a magician, an endless source of mirage and amusement.

He didn't want that to change.

"You wouldn't —" Arthur looked abruptly sick. "Eames, Dom would never. Okay? Even when he didn't know about you, he'd never. Come on, he used to go under Pippa's bed every night with a laser gun to check for the fucking monsters, he'd never put one there! And Mal would have gutted anyone who tried, she'd have done it slow, don't think for a _second_ —"

And then it was too late, too late for retreat or concealment, because Yumi, Saito's grave little daughter with her solemn charm, was sketching out a shy wave and tugging on Philippa's hand, pointing.

Philippa's yell of joy sent the seabirds flying, and she ran up the beach in a blur of sundress and blonde hair, leaving Miles quite obviously facepalming behind her and trying to corral James.

Eames froze in perfect horror, and was utterly and rather wonderfully ignored as Philippa leapt past him at Arthur, only one word decipherable in ten as she hugged him frantically.

"Er," Arthur said brilliantly, trying not to topple backwards and hold Philippa steady at the same time.

"Hullo," came a voice from rather too close to Eames's other side. "Who are you?"

"That's Eames-san," Yumi said gravely, but her eyes were dancing with quiet enjoyment. A dimple showed in one cheek as she tried to contain her smile. "He's my friend. The one I said about. One of Papa's secrets. He's real, they both are, look."

"Oh..." James tilted his head to one side and studied him with a frown. "You wrote on yourself, all over. Grandma gets mad at me when I do that."

"Does she?" Brilliance was apparently catching. 

Philippa was still clinging onto Arthur as though she had been using a temp-mod that made her take on all the characteristics of an octopus, so apparently no help was coming from that quarter any time soon. Arthur just looked as though he was extremely relieved he was sitting down.

"Yeah," James said. "Then I have to take baths."

"Oh."

"Baths are boring. Even with spoons."

"Right," said Eames, thoroughly lost.

"He takes spoons in the bath because he's a baby," Yumi said quietly. "I've got a sponge. It comes from under the sea. Better than spoons."

"Knew you'd come," Philippa said into Arthur's neck.

"And I find large amounts of alcohol are immensely helpful," Miles said, apparently to the sky.

"Pip. Pippa." Arthur had apparently finally found his voice. "I'm glad to see you too, but really. I do need to breathe."

"Oh... sorry." She loosened her hold slightly, then peeked over at Eames. "Hello, are you a friend of Uncle Arthur's?"

"You might... say that," Eames hesitated. "And your father's. It's me... Eames. Do you remember me?"

"Oh... you have a new face." She reached one hand out to touch it. "Last time you had a... a beard. It was fuzzy and it tickled."

"He wrote on himself." James added.

"I can _see_ that," Philippa said with all the scathing authority of an older sister, and slid down from her grip on Arthur, getting her feet beneath her onto the powdery white sand, to come and take a closer look. "Why? Were you going to forget things? I do that in class, we go to class here, Mr. Saito says it's important, but it's all different letters so when I want to remember I write it on my hand and then I don't waste the paper."

It felt extremely like being hit under the ribs with a metal bar.

" _Impolite_ , Philippa," Yumi said softly.

"No it's not, they're Dad's friends, I can ask them —"

"What're you gonna forget?" James asked. "Pippa forgot t'brush her hair, this morning."

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did —"

"Philippa! James!" Miles said sharply. "I'm certain that neither Arthur nor... Eames want to hear you squabbling."

Fuck. He'd forgotten about Miles. Miles, who right about now was probably thinking that his new mod was in very poor taste... or something. Eames had never been able to read Miles as easily as he could other people. 

Arthur, thank every light and star known for Arthur, jumped into the breach, "You two should feel honoured and take a very close look. This is what Eames really looks like under his mods. Not very many people get to see that." Arthur shot a look at Miles that said quite clearly that if he made any trouble in front of the children, he'd have to answer to Arthur.

Philippa studied his face more closely, bringing her other hand up to rest on Eames's shoulder. "I like it. You have nice eyes."

"How long does that last?" James said, wetting one finger and rubbing it over one of Eames's tattoos. 

"Oh, yuck, James," Yumi made a face. "Gross."

"Forever," Eames said in a voice that didn't sound anything like himself.

James's eyes went wide. "I want some!"

"And the world will now join me in a resounding chorus of _over my dead body_ ," Miles said wearily. Apparently Eames's real appearance came very low at the moment on the list of things that made his day intolerable.

"But —"

" _No._ "

"— I could —"

" _No._ "

"— And —"

Miles made a sound that resembled a whimper.

"Ha," said James smugly, sounding exactly like his father did in a moment of rare victory over communal stupidity, and promptly lost all interest. "C'mon, Yumi, we need shells."

They scurried off down the beach, taking Philippa with them.

"Do not go too far. James! I mean it, James! If you go too far you won't get any dessert tonight." Miles scrubbed his hands over his face, then sat down on the corner of Arthur's blanket. "Seven hells, I sound like some horrid crystal-vid program."

"Always thought you were one," Eames said, still on auto-pilot. "Fucking _hell_ , Miles, what —"

"If I say Saito, will that be a good enough explanation?" Miles asked, and then shook his head. "No, I'm sorry, it's just — he's a force of nature, and that blasted child of his has this whole city wrapped around her finger, and once she met Pippa, now _there_ 's something the future should beware of, lords, they'll have us in a new Empire before they hit their age, I swear. And now you turn up looking like a time-sol — I mean like one of the Psion-Corps, and really, I am far too old for any of this —"

"I am," Eames said quietly. "I was. This isn't a holo, Miles. Arthur was telling you the truth."

"But there aren't any of the Psion-Corps lef —" Miles paused, glancing from Eames to Arthur and back. "Well, except for you, apparently. Hell. "

"Quite." Eames said in agreement.

"James Cobb!" Miles suddenly called down the beach. "Leave that alone. No, you may not take that bloody great log back with — No, James!"

Eames couldn't help it... he burst out laughing, Arthur joining in almost immediately.

"Shut up." Miles muttered, shaking his head. "I'm exhausted. Have either of you heard from my wayward son-in-law recently?"

"Yeah, funny you should mention that," Eames said. "Seeing as he and Saito are why we're here."

"He and —" Miles's expression was, if not a thing of beauty, quite certainly a joy forever. "Dominic sent you here? To Saito?"

"More like brought us," Eames said, and Arthur grinned like a madman, because oh, it wasn't just time Saito was paying them with after all, it was something infinitely better, it was Dom's reason to live, and it was hope, and none of this was an illusion, because _Arthur could see it._ "Dom's here, Miles. We've been here for days. Didn't Yumi tell you?"

"No. No, she didn't. And I hope you all die in a fire," Miles said, and lay back in the sand in complete defeat. Then he snorted with a resigned sort of laughter. "Eh. I'll settle for Saito. _After_ Yumi tells him off for keeping secrets and making her join in."

**

Lunchtime had been most amusing to Yusuf, and not simply because Dom's children were lovely and amazingly precocious either. Their reunion with their father was heart-warming and had caused any number of awws from Ariadne, who seemed to think Philippa — Pip, she had told him to say — and James were the cutest kids in the history of ever (her words, not his), and in spite of the fact that she had said the same thing about Yumi just the week before. 

He did have to say that he came down on the Yumi side of the scale after watching her, hands resting calmly on her thin thighs, telling her father that, "Keeping secrets that aren't happy secrets, like presents or surprises, isn't nice." Aside from the size and the feminine softness of Yumi's young features, it was like looking at Saito in a mirror. 

Yumi was going to be a force to be reckoned with someday.

"Sometimes unhappy secrets are necessary," Saito had said, calm and unruffled in the face of his daughter's disapproval. "Which is why I told you to keep this one."

"I kept it well," Yumi had said with a frown.

"And whose idea was it to go to the beach with Miss Philippa today?" Saito had enquired. "Or was not being believed too much for my daughter's ego, hm?"

"I only told _James_ —" Yumi had started in protest, and then bit her lip. "Oh."

"Oh," Saito had agreed. "What a very good thing you are more intelligent than I as to when one should keep secrets hidden."

Yumi's dimple had reappeared as she beamed at him.

"So, so owned," Ariadne had said happily, but whether she was talking about Saito or Dom or even herself was questionable.

"That," Saito had said in an obviously false whisper, "is not in debate."

Of course, when Dom had finally arrived, dragged out of his work room by a grinning Arthur, Saito got to hear another lecture. Well, tirade would have been a better term, if Philippa had not interrupted him by saying it wasn't polite to yell at her friend's father, especially when you were staying in one of his guest rooms. Needless to say, Dom had settled down, giving her a sheepish grin and telling her she was quite right.

"Also owned," Ariadne had cackled.

The confused look she had got from Dom had sobered her up more than a little, mostly because, euphoria aside, there were incredibly good reasons Saito had been performing the balancing act of keeping Dom and his family both safe and apart.

The main one being that Dom might not ever come back from what they were planning, back from a destruction that was not only of Cobol's mastery — and what they were planning effectively meant for Dom that he was going away in order to — well. Yusuf was a generous man. 

_Terminate_ Mal's existence.

It sounded better than _kill his wife_. An enormous amount better.

"Yusuf." Eames, suddenly impervious to all festivity, pulled him aside. "We need to talk. _Now_."

"Yes, of course," Yusuf said absently, and then —"Wait, Eames, can't it wait, we should —"

"Now," Eames repeated, and Yusuf followed his gaze to where Arthur was utterly absorbed in watching Dom and his family. "Please."

"I am not going to like this at all, am I?" Yusuf grumbled, but he got to his feet.

They had barely stepped into an adjoining room before Eames closed the door behind them, leaning against it. The look on his face answered the question Yusuf had made — he was definitely not going to like this conversation, any of it.

"My time-jack's still working isn't it? Still functioning, I mean, aside from it being permanently open."

"As far as I can tell, yes," Yusuf answered, his forehead creased in a frown. "But I don't know —"

"Good," Eames interrupted. "Because you're going to send me into Cobol's command centre ahead of Dom."

"But Eames, I don't know if —"

"No, look. Did you see his face? How can we send him in to kill his wife?" Eames looked at him with a sigh. "And, what's possibly more important — if we send him in, can we trust him to actually do it? I'm not so sure."

That had always been a concern. Now that Dom had his children back, it was a more vivid one, because how could he even bear to contemplate walking in, with that sort of trust in him renewed, and performing an act that would deservedly end any such faith in him?

"That — yes. Yes, that's a worry. Of course." Yusuf rubbed at his forehead, feeling the already re-forming callouses on the pads of his fingers catch and drag against his skin. "But Eames —"

"So you'll do it."

"I can —"

"Brilliant."

" _Eames_ ," Yusuf said desperately. "Shut up and listen. We don't understand the time-jack. Dom made very little headway, and he's brilliant, you know he is, so we can't risk doing anything with the perm-element, not yet — and I'm sorry, but I've made even less. I can put a patch on it, of course I can, I can make it operational. But —"

"If you can make it work, then —"

"I can get you in," Yusuf said. "That's easy. But my friend, I can't get you back. I can only program a one-way patch. I have tried to think, I have — the diagnostics don't add up, there is no algorithm for this. I thought perhaps this wouldn't matter, that we would use it another time, maybe, or for something — I'm not sure what I thought, but this — you are asking me to —" He shook his head. "No. Dom is a variable. We can't be sure what he will decide. If I send you in with no way of leaving the centre, then you are asking of me what Saito has of Dom and worse. Dom will have a chance to leave. You will not. I won't do it."

"Then I'll find someone else who will." Eames crossed his arms over his chest. "Because I am doing this, Yusuf. I am. I can't take those children's father away and then their mother. I'm not strong enough for that."

"But Eames, are you listening to me? I can't —"

"I don't care." Eames's jaw was tight.

"I'll tell Arthur." That was his last hope for sanity.

"And then I'll have to kill you, because if he knows I'm working off a one-way patch, _he'll_ find a way of getting rid of me and going in there ahead of Dom all on his own, and yeah, I fucking well will blame you if that happens," Eames pointed out. "Good news, Yusuf. We're right back where our bloody awful families started us out from. You or me."

He had the nerve to grin.

"Fuck you, Eames," Yusuf said flatly, then sighed, because beneath all the terrible bravado and what sounded like a need to be punched very hard in the face, he knew begging when he heard it. He had heard it long ago, not in Eames's voice, but in Arthur's, saying — 

_I know, I know what it looks like, but Yusuf, I think this could work, I think he's a good man, please, give him a chance._

And he had, he had given the bogeyman from the shadows of children's nightmares a bed of its own and taught it how to cook and got drunk with it and been made to laugh by it and become its — become his, become _Eames's_ friend, Eames who was now asking him for the right to walk into death at a time and place of his choosing, which lights and stars and the old God above, didn't all men have the right to ask that? — and now he might lose that friendship, and for a terrible second he wished he had refused Arthur, all those years ago, so that he might be able to spare himself the grief that would almost certainly follow what he was about to do.

"All right then," he said heavily. "All right. I'll figure it out and I'll do it. But only to ensure that you arrive in one piece. You're in charge of making sure your pieces stay safe."

"I'll do that."

Yusuf was so, so screwed... and Arthur was going to kill him... slowly... when he found out. And he would. 

Eames could threaten all he liked, Yusuf could lie through his back teeth, and the rest of the world could be left in the dark, but Arthur would still find out.

"Eames —"

"No. I'm asking. You're not offering, Yusuf. _I'm asking._ You're clear, you can sleep at night, it's not on you."

"And I do not feel better at all," Yusuf said with a sigh.

"Yeah." Eames dropped his head, his shoulders moving in an uneasy shrug. "No. Me neither, mate. Me neither."

**

The next few weeks were understandably busy, highlighted only by the frequent interruptions of Dom's children who, though on the surface happy and light-hearted, seemed to never relax if they couldn't see him every few hours. It was understandable after his long absence, but a bit of a disruption none the less.

Arthur had been going over the schematics of the Mandell with Saito, organizing upgrades and basically turning the swift moving little shuttle into something that more closely resembled a large well-shielded fighting craft. Yusuf and Ari were working on something as well, but he wasn't sure exactly what it was. He only knew that Saito alternately twitched and grinned brightly (and slightly falsely) whenever they discussed it with him. 

Dom was studying the plans of the Centre, memorizing all the entrances and exits.

Eames moved between all three groups, adding a word of encouragement where he couldn't help and taking the children off Dom's hands when he absolutely could not be interrupted.

And Yusuf and Eames, whose friendship had always been an oddly indefinable thing, were being — stranger than usual, was the only vague and infuriatingly just out of reach description that Arthur could come up with. One night they would go out onto the beach and talk for hours, walking along the shell-sand near the higher breakwaters and their demeanour reading 'keep off' as clearly as any sign, the next they would spend all of an increasingly rare communal dinner sniping at each other with barely veiled hints at each others' families and references to the Onyx sector that had Saito and Dom gently persuading the children away from the table and away to something that promised to be more interesting.

The only vaguely interesting moment that occurred during one of these inexplicable spats was when Yusuf took offence at something quite ordinary Eames had said about 'the last tastes of luxury' over, of all things, _fruit_ , and Yusuf had snapped something perfectly scurrilious in return about Eames knowing all about that, since everyone knew what black-market holos were used for, and besides, _how_ often had he given unsuspecting targets the Onyx-kiss on the space-station?

Eames had fallen abruptly silent, his mouth tightened into a white line that was almost frightening with its evident attempt to hold back on what he wanted to say, and Arthur had been unable to speak, and it had been Ariadne who had said into the embarrassed silence that even Saito seemed unable to break — 

"Disapproving of others' customs, Yusuf? How very cit of you." She had turned an utterly dazzling smile on Eames, then, and said sweetly, "Now that you don't have to practise abstinence, Eames, what with the holos turned off for a bit, feel free to drop by my very, very nicely appointed room whenever you feel like it. Arthur'll vouch for me. I give the _best_ Onyx-kiss, and I follow up on it even better."

"She does," Arthur had agreed, because all the space-station had known of his and Ari's time together, and watching tension go out of Eames while Yusuf looked even more annoyed was somehow rather satisfying, even if he wasn't quite sure why. "Spectacularly, Ari, in case I didn't say at the time."

"Well, well, _well_ ," Eames had said, not jealous at all and more speculative and _just_ on the right side of outright flirtation, which was probably why no-one had kicked him yet. "Strong words, those, Arthur. Instead of coming to you, maybe you should find _our_ room of a night then, my lovely little humming-bird."

"You know what? I may very well do that." Ariadne nodded, grinned at them both, then turned her attention back to her own meal as though nothing had happened, ignoring the way Yusuf was looking at her entirely.

"Ha," said Saito, amused for his own reasons and not sharing them. "Your 'children' have grown beyond you, Dominic."

"Like every good father, I have selective deafness," Dom said serenely, but he was smiling down at his wine.

Ariadne raised her glass to him, smiling as though they shared a secret, and Dom inclined his head, the gesture oddly like Saito at his most acquiescing.

And Yusuf kept looking at her, his eyes as wide as though he had suddenly seen the infinity of every schematic in the universe, if he could only find the key.

Considering the fact he more than suspected she had used the whole situation _just_ to get Yusuf to look at her like that, Arthur was impressed at her coolness.

Still, whatever else it might have done, or been intended for, Ari's suggestion had defused a very tense situation and things seemed to be better all around, if only because Eames and Yusuf seemed to be ignoring whatever their argument had really been about, rather like a large elephant in the middle of the room.

**

Plans moved on and forward, the day of departure arrived and Dom sneaked quietly into the corridors of the City Centre while Arthur led Saito's troops into a battle that was half for dominance and half as a distraction for Dom. It was a grand battle either way, the troops performing like the well oiled machine they were.

And then suddenly, as if no time had passed, he was in the City-Centre, following Dom's path to play back up -- to ensure the ending if Dom weakened. He ghosted down the corridor in Dom's wake, seeing no actual sign of him aside from unconscious guards and disabled systems.

"Oh, _mon amant_. You know you will never be able to harm me. You love me too much, as I love you."

It was Mal's voice he heard. Rough from disuse and, somehow, slightly mechanically distorted, but hers never the less. The mod was on, she was disconnected, they had a chance... 

"I love you too much to leave you here to suffer. Too much not to fight." Dom sounded rough and raw-abraded, but determined none the less.

"But we will fight. We will! You and I, Dom, as it always should have been, you and I will bring it all together — imagine us, joined, ruling Cobol and Saito and Fischer's Corps — all of it, if only — but I need you, Dom. I need you. I can't do this alone."

"The children need me too, Mal." Dom's voice was a raw ache. "They miss you. And they need me. How could I leave them... even for you?"

"They'll be safe, _mon amant_ , I promise. Safe and in a universe that their parents rule over together. We can be so much better than we ever were. So very much more. You will see." 

Arthur could see into the room now, could see Mal, hard-wired into the city's systems, controlling everything from electricity to sewage, from traffic to departures, all of it channelled through her thin, frail-seeming body.

She held one hand, one wire-trailing hand, towards Dom as she spoke, "And we will be together on a whole new level. A connection from mind to mind as if we were telepaths, Dominic. Just think of it. Think of our intimacy, the new level of our love."

"Think — Mal. Mal, this is wrong. Mal, think of Philippa, think of James —"

"I own a world," Mal said dreamily. "I win battles. And without you it is all empty, it means nothing — oh, Dom. Dom, I want my life to mean something. I want it to mean your love."

"Mal... I —"

"You promised me forever. You did, and now we can have it." Dom finally took her hand and she pulled him closer. 'You promised."

"I did." Dom's voice sounded defeated. "All right..."

"NO!" Arthur couldn't hold back any more — promise or not, he went dashing out into the room. "Dom, you can't. You have to —"

Mal waved her hand and a fiery jolt went through his body, and he could feel it thrum in anguish through his heart — 

" _No_!"

Arthur sat bolt upright in the bed, panting. "Fuck..."

"Luminance three —" Eames muttered beside him, waking, and "No!" Arthur snapped in response.

"Luminance zero point," Eames said immediately, because of all of them, he knew about when someone needed the dark, whether from pain or for concealment, and it was instantly blessedly, blessedly dark in the room, the dazzle behind his eyes gone, and he could lift his screwed-shut lids. 

The room he opened his eyes to a second time was free even from the little night-lit candle-like things that sometimes drifted in of an evening from where Yumi liked to set them glowing at night before she went to bed. They were prayer lights, or some such nonsense, Arthur thought, but even that absence didn't calm him, didn't set the world any more to rights.

"Well, your psyche's a nice old hellhole tonight," Eames said on a yawn, comfortingly insulting even as he sat up beside Arthur and leant a sleepwarm arm over his shoulders. Heavy, grounding, the skin a little roughened still with all the salt air that never quite showered off, the scar tracery that overlaid it palpable on Arthur's back. "Spill, Arthur. That wasn't memory. That was nightmare."

It had felt a damn sight more like prophecy.

"Yeah... yeah... just... give me a minute." He drew in a few deep breaths while Eames resettled them in the bed, pulling Arthur back, his sleep-loose body warm and in utter contrast to Arthur's cold tenseness, pulling Arthur back against his chest; an antidote to adrenaline. 

He could feel Eames's heartbeat, countering his own ratcheted, stuttering races of flight-or-flight, the rhythm steady, unalarmed. 

_Dream,_ he reminded himself. _They don't come true. The Horn Gate's a fable, just a name, it's a name to remind us of legend, what my mind throws up isn't real_ —"It was Mal... and Dom."

"Not surprised," Eames muttered. "We've all been thinking about that. It's going to be very hard for him. What else, darling?"

He spoke briefly, giving out the details of the dream, right up to its ending. "I can still feel it. Like electricity shooting through my chest."

Eames's hand stilled over his ribcage, the fingers and palm a hard warmth over Arthur's heart, keeping it safe from dreamt pain. 

It went a long way to removing the residual convictions that Mal had in fact stopped it beating, that it had been more than just a dream, that somehow she had reached out from Cobol's wires and tried to kill him while he slept.

"That's... yeah. It's kind of what Yusuf and I have been working on... a way for me to sneak in ahead of Dom... so that if he can't do it... I will. I'm going to use the mod suppressor..."

"On Mal?" Stupid question, but for a moment, he'd thought — but who else would Eames be able to use it on? 

Ridiculous.

"Yeah, yeah, obviously on Mal. See if it helps. Stick around a bit, yeah, make sure Dom doesn't need too much back-up..."

"You'll be in there. With him. You'd stop him —"

Something in Eames seemed to pause and shiver at that, but it must have been just a yawn he was stifling, because he sounded amused at having to repeat himself, more than anything, when he spoke again. "Well, said I'd try, didn't I? And Yusuf's nearly got it sorted, 's why he's been so ratty. Yeah, we're nearly good. I won't let him go under, Arthur. Owe him too much for that."

"You're making all these promises, it's enough to worry a man," Arthur said, but the tension was slipping out of him. He felt as though he'd been on some terrible adrenal temp-mod, wired-up to hell, and was coming crashing down out of it with no chem-help to see him past the worst.

He thought if he'd had the energy, he'd have probably been shaking, but his muscles seemed to have other ideas. He felt inert, lethargic, drained.

"Isn't it, though?" Eames said, and his voice was light and teasing, and his heart beat steadily under its cage of bone and muscle and ash-black scars, and it had been a dream.

Nothing more.

Nothing more.

Arthur found himself falling back into sleep like a small and drifting stone through Saito's oceans, losing himself slowly to their infinite depths of cool time, while Eames muttered nonsense from the Psions' strange beliefs — or was it from their poetry, did they have poetry, had that been something else no-one had known about? — above him, interspersed them with brushing kisses over his temples, the hollow of his throat, traced the words across his shoulder with one gentle finger.

He absorbed it for love, and heard hardly any of it. All that mattered was that his heart no longer ached from a phantasm's touch, that he was alive, alive enough to dream, to hear the unfamiliar words while he lay on the cusp of sleep, alive enough to feel the touch of Eames's hands and lips as they punctuated language and made a distant sense of the unknown and unknowable.

_Don't go anywhere without me.  
Let nothing happen in the sky apart from me,  
or on the ground, in this world or that world,  
without my being in its happening._

_Vision, see nothing I don't see.  
Language, say nothing._

_The way the night knows itself with the moon,  
be that with me. Be the rose  
nearest to the thorn that I am._

_I want to feel myself in you when you taste food,  
when you work, when you visit friends,   
when you walk by yourself at night._

_There's nothing worse than to walk out along the street  
without you. _

"I don't know where I'm going."

_You're the road, and the knower of roads,  
more than maps, more than love._

And — _love_ , he thought as he sank beneath the waves, softly diminishing his consciousness with lapping, ever deepening, fainter sound. _Love._

If he dreamed again that night, he didn't remember it.

**

**vii {wrap arms and roots together}**

The next few weeks were understandably busy. Just like in Arthur's dream, a similarity that jarred him each time he became aware of it, the time blurred into one long period of unending, detail-obsessive work, highlighted only by the frequent interruptions of Dom's children. 

Arthur was still going over the schematics of the Mandell with Saito, adjusting infinitesimal connections that would make it more of a fighter-craft, bringing a weapon out of a ship. Yusuf and Ari were still working together on something half-way secret that was making Saito twitch, something they refused to discuss with anyone else — and Dom was still studying the plans of the Centre Deeps, memorizing all the entrances and exits.

Eames helped or avoided them at will, strangely distant and intense at once. Knowing what he was planning, why he had to stay away from Dom, made it no easier to watch, and the one thing that made it easier on him was that Dom remained oblivious to what had been decided. He was as evasive as Kazue, seeming to draw inspiration from her silent observance, as though he were memorising her behaviour for a new holo-performance.

And the one thing that Arthur had been wishing would change, knowing as he did where the tension had originated, hadn't altered in the slightest. 

Yusuf and Eames, despite Eames's assurance that everything was 'nearly sorted', were still being vaguely secretive and cranky with each other. He had witnessed more soft and solemn conversations erupt into yelling and slamming of doors in the past few weeks than he ever wanted to see. The arguments, what he caught of them, seemed to devolve all too quickly into the worst possible denominator — old family-caste slurs and condemnations — none of which, Arthur was certain, either man actually meant. 

It all just seemed to be the easiest way for them to let out whatever was causing the anger without ever actually saying what those real issues were. The combined fury of the two men was almost frightening.

Ari got into the middle of it one morning, spraying them both with toast crumbs as she waved her breakfast around while her hands sketched out their stupidity — and found herself on the receiving end of a display of anger from Eames that put everything he and Yusuf had been doing right down at the bottom of the scale of 'minor disagreements'.

"What the _bloody fuck_ have you done to your hand?"

It was as if the whole house froze under the force of his voice.

"Let go of my wrist," Ariadne said, deadly calm and level. "Eames. Let me go. It's none of your —"

"If you tell me that this isn't any of my business, I'll hit you," Eames said, and he meant it. "Yusuf, did you know —"

"No I did not," Yusuf said, sounding equally angry. "Ariadne. _What have you done_?"

Arthur, who had been continuing down the hallway in an attempt to pretend that the latest row wasn't happening, belatedly realised that he should have intervened from the start, and came back into the kitchen.

Eames was holding Ariadne's wrist in a grip so tight that it was almost possible to see the bruises forming under his fingertips, her hand splayed out and palm-upright.

And across it was an ink-and-ash scar-tat.

"What were you thinking, Ari?" Arthur was trying so very hard to keep his voice calm, in spite of the heat and agitation he could feel pouring off of Eames in waves. "Eames's tattoos aren't... you can't just..." Obviously he wasn't managing to keep it together as well as he wished. "It's not a fashion statement. The 'in' thing for all young cits this season. It's serious. They fucking mean something!"

"And so does mine." Ariadne snapped out, once again trying to tug her arm away from Eames. "It's to remind me."

"Tell me," Eames managed to squeeze out between clenched teeth.

"I am never," Ariadne said furiously, "never, never going to be told by anyone again, with any fucking justification, that _my people_ are the ones who screwed over everyone I love. And when I think it would be easy to take whatever Saito's offering this time, or let Yusuf do half my work because I'm bored with fiddling, or think I don't need Dom to check over what I've done because I'm an Academe and I know what I'm doing, I look down at this and I think _no you don't, this is where it starts_. Someone to do the boring bits, because I'm worth more. My work's going to be perfect, no-one needs to make sure of me. And what's next? Telling Yusuf to do something that I know he won't agree with if I explain it thoroughly? Lying to Dom and saying I've done something before? Sending you all out with work that could kill you, because I couldn't _possibly_ be wrong? Because if I do that, if I start down that path, then I'm _them_. And I won't be. I _won't_.

"So this..." her eyes darted down to her palm, still stretched open by Eames. "This is to remind me I'm not perfect, no matter where I was raised or what I know. That letting people do for me, and work for me, and let me slide, just because I was accidentally born in a tower instead of on the street will never, ever be right. That it won't ever help me in the long run. That what it will do is keep me from trying to learn, keep me from understanding people I care about and..."

Her voice trailed off to silence before she continued. "And the harder I try, the more I need this to remind me, Eames. Because this learning is the most difficult I have ever undertaken."

"Ari —" Yusuf started, his voice gentle, and she turned on him like a trapped cat, almost hissing.

"No. You do _not_ get to tell me it's all right. It's not all right. It's not going to be all right, even if Saito's plan works, you still believe in monsters and Eames has fucking memory gaps and Arthur is _broken_ , even if we don't talk about it, and all of that is _for good_. And I'm not going to be responsible for another generation, years down the line, talking about me like we do Cobol."

"That wasn't fair, Ari," Arthur said mildly. He rather understood now why Eames had wanted to hit her, before.

"Yeah, well truth isn't," Ariadne snapped. "You've said things these last days about the Psions and the Onyx Sector, Yusuf, and what now? If they're monsters, what am I? And get over it, Eames. That's what they call you. You were all wiped out, yeah, we get it, it's appalling. But Yusuf didn't do that. Arthur _did_ , and you've got no problem forgiving him!"

Eames dropped her wrist as though her skin had scalded him, but his other hand came up to cup around her marked one, a dichotomy of touch all of its own. "That's not —"

"No. I know." Ariadne rubbed her wrist, and glared at him. "I know, we all know, so why the hell are you two banging on about it like you believe any of the complete _shit_ we've had to listen to for what's starting to feel like forever?"

"Maybe we all need tattoos," Yusuf said quietly, looking down at his own hands.

Eames released Ariadne so quickly that it was almost like he'd been burnt, and Arthur waited for the snap of words that he was sure would follow. Instead, they were treated to Eames at his gentlest, "You may be right, Yusuf. We're just as quick to fall back into those old patterns and we've known they were wrong for much longer than Ari. It's just easier to go with what we know rather than fight about — well, easier doesn't make it right, either way. I'm sorry."

"Yes. Me too." Yusuf agreed, placing one hand on Eames's shoulder.

"Yusuf, whenever you put your hand there, I wait for the wave-suppressions to start," Eames said dryly, and Yusuf huffed out a laugh, gripping a little tighter and shaking Eames back and forth slightly.

"You're an idiot," he said. "But I have not exactly been helpful."

"And I don't want a tattoo," Arthur said, and then when they all looked at him, blinked at them as sweetly as Ariadne could ever have managed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we were all taking turns at stating the obvious."

"My _wrist hurts_ ," Ariadne said. "In the spirit of obviousness."

Watching Eames falling over himself to apologise while not really apologising was always a joy and a wonder. Arthur leant back against the wall and watched the fun.

"You want to make it up to me?" Ariadne asked at last. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Eames said a bit desperately.

"Make this a proper ash-tat," Ariadne said firmly, and this time it was she who reached out to clamp her hand around Eames's, stopping his automatic withdrawal. "Eames. I'm not getting rid of it. But I want it done right."

Amazingly enough, rather than looking at Ariadne, Eames's eyes darted toward him. It was asking for permission, asking for back up in refusing, asking for understanding no matter which he did... it was rather all or nothing and Arthur wasn't quite sure what he should or shouldn't say. "If... If she's determined, Eames, it might be better if you did. Less chance of her getting an infection or other damage, while doing it herself, I'd think."

That seemed to be the proper response, if Eames's nod was anything to go by.

"All right," he said. "I'll do it for you. But there's one condition."

Ariadne started to protest, and Eames shook his head, stopping her. "No. You said a lot, and I don't know how much of it was to get us to see you properly and stop acting like idiots towards each other, and how much of it you believe, but you'd better understand this before we do _anything_ about fixing that mess you call a scar-tat. Think what you like, say whatever you want about what we all are, what we've all done. But get this straight. Yeah, there's a litany of what's been done to us all. But Ari, having a fused mod does not make Arthur broken. And out of everything you've said, that's the one thing you need to get over and get out of your head and apologise for before I even think about doing this for you. No, not now. Not when you'd say anything to get your own way. Go for a walk. Take a hoverbike out. _Think_ about why the mods frighten you so much. And then come back and ask me again."

"But they don't frighten me, they just —" Her eyes darted over to Arthur, then back to Eames, then down at her own feet. "Okay, fine. I'll... I'll be back later, okay?"

"Take your time, love," Eames answered, and Ariadne and Yusuf went out the door that Arthur had just entered.

Arthur waited for them to get out of hearing range before he questioned Eames, "How did you know?"

The blank look Eames gave him was completely unfeigned. "What, that she needs to apologise to you?"

Arthur tried not to smile at that. "No. I mean, yes, she does, but no. How did you know she's frightened of the mods?"

Eames stared at him. "You're joking."

"No, I mean I had no idea, and I don't think Yusuf did, either, and —"

"Arthur. She ran away from her home planet because of Mal going insane. She ran away with _us_. I couldn't drop my holos, your mod's fused, Dom never uses his, Mal's under psychosis — anyone even halfway sane would be damn well _terrified_ of getting a perm-mod, with those examples to live with."

"Anyone would be afraid of what Mal has become. I'm lords-damned terrified myself," Arthur admitted. "But for her? She was raised with perm mods. In the towers everyone has one, or is planning which one they want to add, or which they should get first. Everyone knows about the possibility of psychosis, but no one ever thinks it will happen to them."

"Right," Eames agreed. "And just at the point when Ari should have been going to Dom for her first perm-mod, guess what happened? Arthur, they probably had it designed already. And Dom —"

"Dom made all Mal's modifications," said Arthur, understanding at last. "And she's got no-one else to ask..."

"Wrong," Eames said, and grinned suddenly. "But I think Dom might have invented his own courtship ritual, in case you're interested."

Arthur thought about that for a moment, blinked, and then nearly yelled —"Yusuf's turned perm-designer? _Yusuf_?"

"I think," Eames said comfortably, "that he intends it to be a one-off commission."

"You set them up," Arthur said, in horrified admiration. "You said that to her so she'd have to —"

Eames's smile was not quite on the right side of pleasant. "Since she's so fond of forcing the issue as a way of life, I thought she'd appreciate it," was all he said. "And besides, there are some words I won't have her throwing around when she doesn't know what she's talking about."

 _Like 'broken',_ Arthur thought, and carefully did not mock. It wasn't that he needed protecting, he certainly didn't want it, but — 

It was oddly nice that Eames wanted to, despite that.

**

The fateful day of departure had arrived... and Dom really needed to stop thinking of it in such grandiose terms, but somehow the more he did, the less he had to think of it being the day that he set out to murder the woman he loved more than breath or the fact that he was, once again, deserting his two wonderful children, even though it was to their grandfather's loving care. 

A part of him still said that it was all so wrong. 

It said that what he should really be doing was taking the kids and running towards some part of the galaxy that was so remote that their mother would never find them. But that wouldn't be fair to them either. They were children, not renegades or refugees, and they deserved to live in a pleasant home, on a pleasant world with people who loved them... not hidden.

He truly was amazed, however that he had succeeded in making it to this day without shooting anyone (Eames and Yusuf, with their strange self-perpetuating anger) or strangling anyone for being secretive and cryptic (Yusuf again, Ariadne in an inexplicable default of strange conspiracy, and of course and always, Saito — although in Saito's case it was more a _state_ of being than something he _was_ being, which was, if possible, even more irritating than Ariadne's hidden smiles and abstracted, smug delight) or simply taking the path of least violence and resistance and shaking someone until they told him what the fuck was going on (Arthur, and only Arthur, because no-one else ever responded to direct questioning, and considering everything, Dom thought he might not really want to hear anything Arthur had to say for a while, especially if it involved Eames and how nice it was not to have holos). 

It was all behind them now, whatever all of it meant, and they were preparing to leave Seisui.

"I still think I should go as your pilot," Arthur said, looking as though the whole idea of Dom alone in a fighter-craft was something they had all come up with just to irritate him.

"I'm hurt by your assumption that I cannot provide him with adequate instruction," Saito said, looking equally frustration-pinched.

"Saito, you are not an AI. You really really are _not_ a —"

"Ah, but I am," Saito said proudly, and pulled aside the neck of his tunic to display a perm-mod port, plugged in with what Dom considered to be his finest work.

A living interface.

"Fucking hell, Dom, that's brilliant," Eames said, peering at it.

" _Wow_ ," said Ariadne. "That's — that's sort of beautiful..."

"You're a fucking idiot and I bitterly regret the day I met you," Arthur said to Dom.

It was so nice to be appreciated.

"It just seemed... neater," Saito said, quietly to Arthur. "A way to be two places at once."

Arthur's growl was very predictable, and so expected that Dom felt instantly more at ease. "Let's get this show on the road."

He (and Saito's avatar) were shipping out on a Freebooter's ship. A more politic term, apparently, than calling them the pirates they were. 

They were licensed, at any rate, which made it possible for them to get in and out of the airspace of the various city-planets without too much governmental hassling. Still, no one questioned their travel plans too closely, most did not want to know the truth or take the chance of drawing the freebooters' attention toward themselves. 

It was an older ship, pieces of it obviously cobbled together from a dozen other vessels, but it was scary fast and manoeuvrable, two things that they might really have to count on when they accomplished their mission.

Dom was very carefully not mentioning the fact that he knew at least one of the reasons Arthur thought he should be piloting the thing was because he couldn't _wait_ to see just how fast he could make it go.

"You can play with it when we get back, Arthur," Eames said, apparently reading Dom's mind. Arthur hit him very hard in the side. "Yeah, I need to keep the ability of movement, you sadistic horror, beating me up can wait as well. Dominic, save me from future pain, lords preserve us, and make sure this thing gets back in one piece."

"Oh, that's my primary concern," Dom agreed, trying to match Eames's nonchalant tone.

"Bloody well should be, if he doesn't get his hands on the damn thing once we're done I swear he'll cut me off, and if I have to suffer, you're all going with me."

"The horror," Yusuf said blandly.

Eames grinned at him. It promised havoc of a most unpleasant variety.

"I was being sincere," Yusuf corrected himself hastily. "Please, Dom, dear Dominic, don't let anything happen to this beautiful — er — piece of space-junk."

And why, oh why, did he work with insane people? Or at least ones that were sanity challenged?

"Well, considering the fact that if something happens to it, I'll probably be inside the damned thing, I fully intend to do my best." 

"You should get aboard," Saito cautioned, then paused as Philippa, James and Yumi all came out the door, a reluctant Miles trailing in their wake.

"Oh, kids," Dom began, "I already gave you your good-bye kisses."

"We wanted to watch you leave," James said, his face very serious. "I like to watch ships take off from the outside."

"He means instead of from the inside," Philippa explained. "The ship we took to get here wasn't at a space port so we didn't get to see any take offs. Our ship was the only one there."

Dom nodded, "I think that can be arranged. Grandpa can take you up to the observation deck and you can see all of us take off."

"Yay!" His children grabbed Miles's hands and began tugging him back towards the door. Yumi, following, turned and waved, giving them her rare, real smile, and then hurried around to get the door for Miles.

"Take good care of them, Miles," Dom said quietly, not knowing if he was even heard.

"I also will do my best to care for them," Saito offered. "No matter what the outcome of your trip is."

It was a moment before Dom could get his voice to work.

"Thank you," he said at last, in a sort of embarrassed croak, and Saito nodded as though he had given a comprehensive and eloquent speech.

"Are you going or not?" Arthur demanded, and Dom laughed despite himself.

"Yes, Arthur. Right away, Arthur. Don't kill the kids while I'm gone," he added with a wave of his hand at Ariadne and Yusuf.

"I'm making no promises at all," Arthur said blandly.

Dom shook his head, and got into the ship, shutting down all thoughts of anything but his end goal, all focus on anything but his interface and the screen in front of him.

Saito's image appeared.

"Initialising," he said, and Dom tried very very hard not to resent the excitement hidden beneath his level tones.

Because Saito, thrilled to his core by the start of his meticulously planned operation, was in his office, at the heart of all that exemplified his hard-won serenity — and win or lose, succeed or fail, when he disconnected from their enterprise, he would have Kazue at his side.

_Your hand in my hand._

Dom was going in to ensure Mal would never put her hand in his again — nor he in hers.

Their dream was over now, no matter what came next.

**

The Mandell set off some time later, Arthur patched in and piloting, Eames scanning, and the whole situation eerily like before, when they had left the Gate-City. Fortunately, it was missing a great deal of blood and a practically mind-wiped Dom.

And it was all crap, Eames thought wearily. 

All of it. Getting organized to follow Dom, finalizing their own plans, dancing around Arthur so that he wouldn't suspect that what was tying him up in knots was anything beyond normal anxiety about just wanting to get it all done and damn well get on with it. 

Ironic, really, that despite the finality and the grandeur of all this, all he really wanted was for this time they had been granted on Seisui never to end; he wanted them to stay on Saito's little island City-world and ignore everything else for as long as they could — to hell with Mallorie Cobb, Cobol, the Fischer Corps and the rest of them.

It wasn't going to happen that way though, and Eames was resigned to it. It had been his idea after all, and as much as he hated it, as much as he wanted to drag Arthur off to a hole someplace and pull the dirt in after them, he knew deep down that this was the only way. This had to be done.

He had forced Ariadne to face her demons about the perm-mod — he knew that she'd finally had the port installed, though she refused to tell him what it was for — not only for her sake, but for his own.

He wasn't coming back. The one thing that he had always feared, and he was walking into it willingly, because he owed all of them this. And he had to know — he had to be _sure_ — that there was nothing he was leaving that he should have done, or tried to do.

Ariadne would have the power she was born for — whether she chose to use it or not would always be her decision, but at least she would have the ability to do what he had always wanted to, would be able to make sure that when there was something Arthur couldn't see, couldn't fight, someone else _could_.

He remembered the illusions Ariadne had created, in the lost cold days of the twin suns, remembered her ideals of perfection, her desire to create worlds for those she loved.

He could not imagine anyone better suited to take on his self-appointed task.

His reaction to her ash-scar had been half-born of fear at his own knowledge of just how well she would fit his role — how much _better_ she would be at it, carrying none of the mind-scars of the Psions or their futile war.

Ariadne, who made and was made for a world in which imperfections could be erased.

And set against that prize was only himself, he who was made and told to live for a world with flaws, and that had been wiped out.

It wasn't a choice, not really, anyway. 

He'd say goodbye, leave Arthur with a kiss and that would be it. He'd either make it back, or he wouldn't, but Arthur wouldn't be left with any guilt about not having stopped him.

Yusuf, who was both his best friend and a demon sent from some hell to torment him personally, seemed determined that any guilt that was going around, Eames was going to carry all of it. 

"I am going to be busy," he informed Eames as he handed over the patch. "We will have to go to auto-nav so that Arthur can install this for you."

"Which is supposed to be _your job_ ," Eames said bitterly. "Coward."

"Busy!" Yusuf retorted, waving a hand at him. "I have plans, you have plans, please do not disturb the equilibrium of my planning. No-one will appreciate it."

"I don't fucking appreciate it _now_ ," Eames said a little desperately. "Yusuf, you can't ask me to give this over to him, when he finds out what it does he'll —"

"So _change your mind_ ," Yusuf almost growled. "Last chance, my friend. You do not have to —"

"Yes I do," Eames said, coldly furious. "So fine. Fine. It was all bloody horrible anyway, thanks for making it worse."

Yusuf threw his hands up in wordless despair, and stalked off to where Ari was fiddling with something at the other end of the Mandell.

"Arthur?" Eames stepped up to the console which took the place of an actual cockpit on the little craft.

Arthur seemed to be engrossed with navigation at the moment, presumably since the adaptations that he and Saito had chosen and installed were different enough from the originals to require extra attention. "Hmmmm?"

"Let me know when you're in the clear. I need some help installing the mod." Eames hoped that he didn't sound quite as irritated as he felt. He didn't want that to be Arthur's farewell. "Yusuf is tied up and I can't do it by myself."

"You tied Yusuf up? Eames, this isn't the time —"

"Stop trying to be dazzling and put the damn thing on auto-nav," Eames said, trying not to laugh, because going out on a wave of laughing at how _utterly ridiculous_ Arthur could be was quite possibly as bad as one of irritation.

Arthur just smirked at him, and it was so very him, to be looking forward to chaos and burning, to be so very certain of victory and smug with it, that for the first time Eames thought — 

_I'm going to lose this, I'm going to lose this, I can't bear it —_

and was tempted to say 'the patch won't work, let's forget this, Dom knows what he's doing, I'm staying here' — 

and remembered Arthur's nightmare, of him saying 'you're making all these promises, it's enough to worry a man', and knew that he would never be forgiven, not for changing his mind now, not for dying. Whatever he did, he would never be forgiven.

"I don't know, Eames, this is important. It's not my fault that you decided to try out your bondage techniques at such an inopportune moment." Arthur continued to tease him, but switched the ship to auto-nav anyway. "You'll have to guide me through. I've never actually done this to anyone else."

"I always suspected you were better at self... adjusting," Eames struggled to keep things light since that seemed to be what Arthur expected. It was probably one of the most difficult things he'd ever done. "You'll have to let me watch sometime."

"Like I could stop you," Arthur said dryly. "Right, is this thing on a timer?"

Eames fought the urge to put his head in his hands and just groan. "Arthur. It _is_ a fucking timer."

"Crap at tech, remember?" Arthur said with a wave of his hand. "Come to think of it, why am I doing this again?"

"Because Yusuf," Eames said with more than a trace of bitterness, "is _busy_."

"With what?" Arthur turned to look toward the back of the shuttle.

"Who knows," Eames said, feeling his jaw tighten. "Can we just get this over with? You just need to..." Eames's hands described a few different angles, "... and that's about it."

"Okay... I can —"

"You are actually going to do it?" Ariadne's voice interrupted the conversation.

Oh no, Eames thought. Oh no no no no no, the bastard wouldn't have _dared_ — 

"You're just going to — what, say goodbye and — and just _go_ , you're — and — and not bother to mention the fact you're _not coming back_?"

And oh yes, he had.

"Yusuf, you're a dead man," Eames said.

" _What_?" said Arthur.

"Oops," said Yusuf, completely unrepentant.

"Eames, what —"

"You were." Ariadne was almost gaping at him. "How could you, Eames? Don't you think that Arthur —"

"Could you excuse us for a few minutes, Ari?" Arthur's voice was calm, but brooked no argument.

"But he's going to —"

"It's alright," Arthur said solemnly. "We'll straighten it out."

"But —" said Ariadne.

"I did warn you," Yusuf said. It was unclear who he was addressing. Eames thought it might well have been everyone, since Ariadne shut up in a hurry.

Arthur looked as though the next thing to go up in flames might well be Eames.

"Is this where I apologise?" he asked rather wanly.

"Yeah, why not, since you have _no problem lying your ass off to me_ ," Arthur said in a frighteningly level voice.

"I never have, Arthur. I've never lied to you."

"You told me this was just to be Dom's back-up. You said you —"

"It is to be Dom's back-up. And I never said that I'd be coming back out the same way I went in," _or at all_ , was the unspoken finish to the sentence.

"It's _back-up_ , Eames. That implies it's a safety switch, not a dead-man switch." Arthur growled out the words, but Eames could hear the underlying fear in them.

"I know. I know that. But I can't — it's not —" words, usually Eames's first, last and best means of defence, failed him. He could argue with Yusuf, he could have even convinced Ariadne, given time, but what was there to say to Arthur except _I don't want to, but I have to, I promised, I didn't know this was what I was promising, but I did and I can't change things, and_ —"I'm sorry. I'm sorry it has to be like this."

"It doesn't, Eames. Damn it. I can't sacrifice you for Dom. I won't."

"It's not your choice, Arthur." And that really was what it came down to. Eames had promised to take the guilt, to take it and feel it so that Dom didn't need to. That was a vow that couldn't be tossed aside. He would take this guilt and make it his own... endure it so that Dom would not have to return to his children and try to explain why he had killed their mother.

"Would it ever have been?" Arthur asked, and no, this was not what Eames wanted to remember him as, this was what he'd been avoiding by trying to make sure only Yusuf knew his plans, this was utterly fucking unbearable. "If I'd said something sooner, if we'd —"

" _No_ ," Eames said, and thought of Dom, his hands steady even while his voice shook with grief, carving words into his skin and scarring the ash and ink into them, hour after hour of needed pain. "No, you couldn't have known, _I_ didn't know —"

"If I'd never found that mod, if I hadn't shown it to Saito —"

"Stop. _Stop it_. This was always going to be on me. I told you that at the start."

"So just because you didn't have a clue what you were getting your idiot self into, it's all right? Because it's not. It's not all right, it's — _what am I supposed to do_?"

"You plug that damn patch in, Arthur, and you wish me luck," Eames said, and kept his voice steady. "You do what you were always going to."

"But Eames —" Arthur's tone was almost desperate, panicked.

"No. Arthur, no, we — the promise wasn't — I've been making it forever, remember?" Eames took his hand. "I belong to you like this plot of ground, that I planted with flowers, and sweet-smelling herbs. Sweet is its stream, dug by your hand, refreshing in the north wind. A lovely place to wander in, your hand in my hand. Each look with which you look at me sustains me more than food and drink."

"Come back to me... come back to me... you promised to wake up with me..." Arthur breathed out the words and Eames drew them in to fill lungs suddenly devoid of oxygen. His mind was spinning under the impact of the response; his heart was so full of Arthur, Arthur, Arthur that everything else was crowded away.

"Always," he promised, knowing that it might be empty, that so many things conspired against them, but unable to give anything less. Arthur was life and hope and home, and if anything would bring him out safe, that would be it.

"Always."

And then Arthur slammed the patch into his time jack, and he was gone.

"Come home," was the last thing he heard, and "I'm trying, I will try, I promise —" he tried to shout back, but his voice didn't work during the timeport, and perhaps it was better if Arthur never heard that, because — 

_'you're making all these promises, it's enough to worry a man...'_

He didn't intend to break a single one of them.

**

The freebooters were completely puzzling. 

Even Dom's experiences while they were living on the space station had not prepared him for their lifestyle of casual destruction. Well, not casual destruction exactly, because casually destroyed things were not necessarily worth money... perhaps the words he wanted were _calculated_ destruction. 

The stories they shared with him and the comments they made when other ships came up on their sensors — the type of cargo the other ship was carrying, its armour and gun placement, and where to place a shot to take out both of those and if necessary the engines as well, all without harming the cargo — were very, well, disturbing as well as enlightening. Not only had he never known there were such people in the universe, but that the Cities employed them to destroy the shipments of their lesser rivals... it was more than eye-opening.

Dom had never minded, back in the City of the Gates, that he was ignorant of so much that went on around him — out in the unmarked quadrants, on the other planets, out further still where wars were still fought. He cared only whether he and his were safe — and he had the money and skills to ensure that for so long that he only realised quite how ridiculously unprepared, how _unfit_ he was to defend himself in the reality of a harsher world when he was forced to flee into it for safety, of all things — and it had thrown him almost as much as Mal's betrayal and disappearance.

It was all a mute testimony to the fact that he had made good friends, in spite of his insulation, friends that had protected him from his own ignorance, putting their own lives and talents on the line. It was more than humbling.

And therein lay his only justification for what he was going now to do. As long as Mal lived and was controlled by Cobol, trapped in the webs of modification psychosis, she would not rest until she found them. She would have Dom brought under Cobol's control and thereby keep him with her. 

Their children would be pawns, wasted on the power struggles between the City corporations. His friends, all of them — Arthur, Eames, Ari, Yusuf — would be, if not dead, destroyed. Destroyed in the ways that would hurt him the worst. The creative joys of Ariadne and Yusuf would be controlled for drudgery of the Corporate good. The other two would probably just be mind-wiped, returned to the service of a military that had already proven that it had no more respect for them than the lives that they had taken.

Or perhaps they would just be kept around as curiosities, mind-blanked and as good as dead, yet still breathing and moving; living relics of a past that showed by example that there were no victors, even if history was indeed being written by those who considered themselves to be just that.

It hadn't been only his children's possible fates that had left Dom beset by nightmares. In a universe where his beautiful, powerful, fiercely independent wife could become Cobol's mindless weapon, there seemed to be no end to the horrors that were possible.

"Head in the game, Dominic," Saito said firmly from his screen.

"What? Oh, yeah, something like that," he replied distractedly. 

"I know this must be... difficult."

"Difficult? Yeah... maybe." Dom gave a dry, choked-off laugh. Raised from childhood to be, as most cits were, self-centered, he had only ever truly given to Mal, made her the center of everything, rather than himself. 

Now he was being asked to look to the greater good, and he wasn't certain if he was able to do so.

"This will work," Saito said, more a proclamation than reassurance. "But I am sorry that it will be so — thorough."

"Thanks," Dom muttered, and focused back on the interface. He was beginning to bitterly regret his insistence that he could pilot the blasted ship perfectly well on his own — on the other hand, he was at least not being forced to restrain himself from screaming in terror, as Arthur proved, _yet again_ , that the laws of physics were for those other, saner people who _weren't him_ at the controls.

They touched down perfectly on schedule, in the right spot, at the right time. Dom wondered briefly if he could find some excuse to put off his departure, to do something with the craft's tech that would distract him from the sickening anxiety and overpowering sadness that was all he could feel. In the end though, he just walked off the ship and, for all intents and purposes, disappeared, employing his perm-mod for the first time in over a year, cloaked from all eyes into invisibility.

The one man who could have seen him was leading a war, light years away from a chance of revelation.

The one woman who would have once given anything to see him was his target.

Dom vanished into the city of his birth, and behind him, the little craft powered down completely, and went back to looking like a dead piece of abandoned space-junk.

**

_"...Dannon Two, shipping from Sanqui, Seventeen hundred Nec-tonnes of synth-fertilizer for colony of Boznos Prime... completed... Send local enforcement to sector 330B... public disturbance... completed... Increase productivity of grain output in central processing unit 4467 alpha... ongoing... Run search of next sector in sequence, subject: Dominic Cobb... on going... Attempt reroute of ancillary connection to main weather controller, sub-station 449743... on going... Failure noted... Alerting engineers of repairs needed... completed..."_

She was the universe. She was unending. She could feel everything, everywhere that her web of connections could reach. It was beyond anything she could ever imagine.

And she controlled it all...

She reached out further, searching for her lodestar with the part of her mind that still held a connection to what she had been, before she contained worlds within her:

"New sector, sequencing search, on going, subject: Dominic Cobb...."

Her mind was full of light, her eyes were the stars, she guided herself through paths no-one else had ever charted, and never would — 

And her mental vision blanked out, completely and absolutely, her eyes opened not onto the trail-lights of galaxies, but onto a room, machines, sounds of things she had left behind, wanted gone.

"Ah, _dieux_..." To say she was disoriented would have been an understatement. 

To say she felt lost, devastated, _bereft_ , would have been inadequate.

She blinked. Her eyes, for so long left unfocused on anything physical, were dry and cloudy. She blinked again to clear them. 

Could she have lost power? Had her jack-sites suddenly sustained instantaneous failure? What was happening?

"Sorry, sweetheart," came a voice to her right. "But you'd have hated being this. Better this way, eh? And better it's me..."

Mal swallowed painfully, feeling disused tissue rub against itself deep within her throat, and turned her head the miniscule fraction she needed to bring the owner of the voice into her newly, impossibly narrow line of vision.

Her breath left her in a hiss of pure, debilitating fear as she looked at what was standing in front of her networks.

A person, not a person, no, but it was someone's back, some _thing's_ back, covered in ash-scars, ink-scars, a lit time-jack burning lurid orange above the markings.

 _Psion, Psion, Psion._

Mal's mind screamed in terror, the information going nowhere but to and from and around her own fear.

"Psion..." the word was almost ripped from her, as if she could not keep herself from saying it.

"Ah, yes. But you always knew that, Mal, you just didn't want to face it."

Her name. This... creature... knew her name. "I don't know you."

"Do any of us really know each other?" the man said softly. "But you once called me friend, _ami, frère_... Eames."

 _Eames_. The holo-master. Arthur's discovery from the back streets of the Onyx Sector. 

She had the information.

It had nowhere to go and no use to it.

 _Friend_. Her mind tasted the word, rolled it around her dead sensors, meaningless, empty.

"Eames," she agreed. Her voice was toneless, metallic-sounding.

He sighed, once, and she knew that was this man's only concession to some old sadness. It meant nothing to her.

She watched him turn back to the machines, doing something she could no longer sense anywhere in her mind or body.

She looked at his back again, blinked her clearing eyes, tried to make out the lettering.

Sigils. She had known them all, once.

Sigils and script.

 _honi soit qui mal y pense_ — 

A Psion had remembered her with his skin.

A world had been ripped from her head.

"Hell is empty," Mal whispered, "and all the devils are here."

She saw the man's back tense for a moment... perhaps...or perhaps it was only a function of the task he was performing.

"The devils are here, Mal... but it isn't the physical manifestation that should worry you." He appeared to have finished what he was doing and turned back toward her.

She studied his face. She had never, that much she remembered, seen him this way. She had never seen his true face. It was strong, symmetrical, with clear eyes and lips that were fuller than they had any right to be. 

All of it was far too pleasant in contrast with the Psion ash-scars.

"I think I am dead," she told him. "I think I have been dead for a long, long time."

His eyes closed.

"I know," he said in a strange voice.

"I chose to die."

"Yes."

"The universe was in my head. Why did you take it from me?"

"Because —" The man who had been her friend, who now meant nothing to her, touched her wrist, between the wires. "Because Dom doesn't choose to die. Or Ari, or Yusuf. Your _children_ , darling Mal, they haven't chosen death. And I can't —"

Mal listened. His words would have meant something, once, she was sure of it; they would have touched something inside her.

She felt nothing.

She was as empty as the hell she had spoken of.

"You do not list yourself."

"No."

"You did not list —"

His hand covered her mouth. "No, Mal. Don't. Please. Stop, okay. I can't —"

She nodded, silenced by more than just his warm palm.

"I... We can't have you left like this, sweetheart. You're hurting everyone... people you love." Eames said as he drew his hand back.

"How have you done this? All this silence?" Mal paused for a moment. "You took everything away... again."

"I blocked your mods... all but one, anyway." Eames spoke quietly.

"That was not very nice," Mal said, a flicker of something she thought might be humour reasserting itself. She thought he might be pleased by that.

Instead, he looked like she had felt in the first moment of opening her eyes, completely devastated, utterly lost.

"I am sorry," she said.

"No. You can't — you can't help it." He looked terrible when he tried to smile. Broken. Wrong. "We thought — when we found the block, we thought it would block one mod, you see. Not all of them. Except the one —"

"It makes my heart beat." She knew that. She could feel it. "It's a life-port."

"I know."

"It's the only one I actually ever needed... but where is the fun in that?" She drew her lips back into something impersonating a smile. 

Why had no one come to see why she was no longer connected? How long before she could return to where she belonged?

"The network went down when you were blocked," Eames said. Perhaps he could read minds. "They invested too much in you. Even their interfaces are gone. Mal, you were powering —"

"Worlds, I made worlds exist." Her dry eyes stung. "You took it away."

"Yeah."

" _Why_?"

"Because Dom is coming here to kill you," Eames said. "And I can't let him do that."

"Dom would never harm me," she said. 

"But you're not exactly yourself anymore, sweetheart." Mal could hear the sadness in his voice, although she couldn't feel it. "You've hurt people. You tried to hurt all of us."

"Dom would never harm me." Mal repeated. 

But somehow she knew, knew that Eames's words were true. She had always felt things and now she felt nothing... nothing except the awe of world-building, the minor satisfactions of each tiny chore accomplished... completed.

"Mal, get this straight. To bring down Cobol? Dom would do _anything_. To keep his kids safe? He'll do far worse than kill you. And then he'll suffer for it, when he shouldn't have to — _damn_ you, Mallorie, why did it have to be you? Why did you have to —"

He stopped himself, the effort visible.

"Why did you have to?" she questioned in turn. She remembered this argument. Ethics. She had always argued about ethics with Eames.

"Because —"

"Because you can bear it," Mal said, and there, _there_ was the flickering sensation, the wires still hooked up to something, a faint connection.

Her heart beat.

"Because I can bear it," she said then. 

"Can you?" Eames asked, there were tears shining in his eyes. Tears for her? "Dom lost you once and blamed himself. Losing you twice... at his own hand..."

"I understand," she said. 

She wasn't sure if she did or not... but if Eames said it would hurt Dom then... she did not want that to happen. 

Dom being hurt was not an acceptable event.

"He wishes to destroy Cobol."

"Yeah."

"Killing me would do this."

"Partly. There's — other things, too."

"But I am no longer viable. My survival cannot continue."

"Yeah."

"Then you will allow me to say goodbye to him," Mal said, and the power of stars thrummed in her voice. "And you will step back, and you will let me do this for myself, for him. Because I can bear it."

"Yeah..." his eyes narrowed. That would mean he wasn't certain he trusted her. She was content, somehow, that he didn't. 

"Then all we must do is wait. _C'est vrai_?"

"Yeah." 

So they waited.

**

The Mandell rocked violently, even inertial dampeners not up to the strain of such sudden shock waves. Arthur spun the ship hard to port then up and over, coming in behind the trailing cruiser. It wasn't as manoeuvrable as the smaller shuttle which, given its superior firepower, Arthur was extremely happy about. He fired two blasts, knocking out the cruiser's rear stabilizer and causing it to spin out and away.

"Dammit, Yusuf. I only have two hands here and I could use some help. What the fuck are you two doing back there?"

"Fucking..." came a sing-song reply, followed by a smacking sound. "Ow!"

Not for the first time, Arthur wondered how Dom hadn't gone insane sooner.

"So you should be done any second, then, Yusuf?" 

Ariadne yelped with laughter.

"Hey! I will have you know —"

"Fo-cus," Ariadne sang out.

"I am focused, I am the avatar of focus, I have not _done this before_ —"

"Nor me!"

"Which is why I am trying to make this perfect, it is very different to anything —"

"Yeah, but Eames never minds —"

In the middle of blowing up something that looked as though a lizard had been inflicted with a terrible thought about engines and acted upon it, Arthur fought back the impulse to close his eyes and swear at them.

"Perfection is highly overrated," Arthur called over his shoulder. The ship rocked again. "And quite useless if you're already dead."

The Mandell spiralled under Arthur's command, ducking behind one of the larger ships of the Seisui fleet... it gave them a short respite until the next attack cruiser noticed them.

"You have about three minutes, Yusuf," Arthur told him, "Then you either do whatever it is, or get your hairy arse up here."

"My arse is not —" But he could already hear Ariadne cackling. "Not funny, Arthur!"

"I don't agree, it's hysterical," Arthur shot back, and then —"Look, can _one_ of you get up here, for fuck's sake, I _don't know what everyone's seeing_."

There was a suspiciously shuffling silence.

"NOW!" Arthur yelled, at the same time as the familiar sound of Yusuf extolling his own brilliance was both the best and the worst thing he had ever heard — 

"Got it! Got it!"

"If it's syphilis, you earned it," Arthur growled.

"Anything but that." Ariadne cackled and then screeched, "Ow! Damn you, Yusuf. Eames is right, you are a masochist."

"Only for you, my sweet."

He was almost ready to leave his seat, stomp to the rear of the Mandell and, damn it, make one of them come forward when Ariadne dropped into the seat next to him.

"Hullo," she said, as if they were just sitting down to a Seventh Day picnic.

Arthur glared at her wordlessly, opened his mouth to say something that definitely wasn't a pleasant greeting — and stopped.

Below her ear, curving along the line of her neck, was a mod that looked more like filigree, three lights glowing in it like jewels.

"Perm-mod," he croaked. "You chose your —"

"Yeah," Ariadne said, and smiled. "I did. And Yusuf made it." She seemed lit up from the inside, as though it were a happiness modification, burning under her skin.

"It's... lovely." He couldn't fault her bravery, even as ill-timed as it was. He had almost begun to think she'd decided to forgo having one. All things considered, he wouldn't have blamed her.

"Isn't it?" She beamed, at Arthur, at Yusuf (who had just walked up to stand behind him), at the image of the cruiser that was — 

"Fuck!" Arthur shouted, "Hang on!" 

Their respite was over, another cruiser on their trail.

And Ariadne drew a deep breath, and said quietly,

" _Now_."

The cruiser that had been on their trail suddenly spun off, banking sharply and ducking back into the protection of the Cobol fleet.

"What was that?" Arthur asked, watching in amazement as the enemy fleet, which had outnumbered them from the beginning, began to pull back. "What did you do?"

"Isn't it cool?" Ariadne laughed. "Yusuf, you are freaking amazing!"

"What did you _do_?" Arthur repeated. He still didn't see anything.

"I told you I wanted to buy an army," Ariadne said, and grinned.

"It's an illusion-mod," Yusuf added. "Everyone's seeing a fleet three times the size of Saito's."

"You're making _Cobol_ think it's outnumbered?" Something in Arthur's brain seemed to have short-circuited.

 _"... What the fuck is that?"_ came suddenly over their comm system. _"Where did all these ships come from?"_

"And you didn't warn any of Saito's ships..." Arthur suddenly realized and slapped a hand over the response button, double checking their secure connection. "It's an illusion, Commander, generated from our location. Just track me. We're able to see through it."

_"... Affirmative, Mandell. You have the lead..."_

"What a surprise," Arthur said dryly.

"Oh, come off it." Ariadne grinned at him. "I just gave you the best present ever."

"Yes, an invisible army, I don't know what to say —"

Yusuf snorted with laughter. "Thank you might be nice."

"Thank you so so much for my invisible army," Arthur said politely, and then started to laugh himself. "Right. Let's see what invisible fighting can do to the Gates..."

The sight of a force that was apparently twice their size had thrown the Cobolian vessels into complete confusion. With the Mandell directing things, setting coded identification signals for each of the 'real' Seisui ships, using the illusory ships as cover and distraction, the tide of battle began to turn. Under Ariadne's guidance, the phony fleet drove the enemy right back into easy reach, so it wasn't long until they achieved a rout of the opposing forces. 

"This is — It's just — You're brilliant." Arthur said, planting a grateful kiss on Ariadne's lips.

"Hey! I did all the work." Yusuf grumbled.

"I'm not kissing you, Yusuf." Arthur deadpanned. "I don't care what you did."

"No-one loves me," Yusuf mourned, but he was smiling as though he knew a secret.

"I'm better than brilliant," Ariadne said, looking out on a world of her own creation. "I am so much better than brilliant. You need to invent a word for me, because words don't —"

Abruptly, Arthur put on the auto-nav, and stood up.

"Leg cramps," he said, moving away from them. "Give me five."

Behind him, he heard Ariadne say something in a soft, confused voice, too low for him to quite make out, but Yusuf's reply, though equally soft, carried over the sounds of the engines and comp set-up.

"You sounded like Eames, chick."

**

**viii {bring chaos out of shape}**

Dom's entrance into Cobol's lair was both more difficult and easier than he would have imagined. More difficult because the place had become madness, people were running this way and that, flipping switches, opening panels, and seeming oddly confused by the way that nothing seemed to work as expected. It was easy to slip inside, to get past everyone because they were all too distracted to do much about one more thing that seemed a bit... off.

All the little nuances, the odd shadows and wisps of air that his passing under the cloak-mod might have caused were so small compared to what everyone was fluttering about, that they didn't even register.

He listened in on conversations, but no one seemed to know exactly what was going on. Either this was all totally unexpected or no one he passed had high enough clearance to know the cause. Dom suspected it was probably a bit of both.

He just couldn't understand why there were suddenly so many problems. Mal was wired in with _his_ mods, there was no way that any of them could have malfunctioned or even corrupted — however many times Dom had tried to at least defuse Arthur's mod, and failed, he had at least learned from it exactly what shouldn't happen and how to avoid anything of the sort happening again, and he had made sure that nothing he produced could ever go the same way.

So it was impossible that any system could be down, if it were all running through Mal.

And it was, he knew it was, they all knew it was, it was why he was _there_ — 

He shuddered, under the masking cloak of his mod, and hurried forward, trying to keep his mind blank.

Because thinking about what he needed to do, had to do, would freeze him in his tracks, make him physically unable to take another step.

_Down two more corridors, then a left and down a set of stairs, watch for the guard, slip past and use the code (Saito-acquired), and in through the door. Disable the sensor (but it was already down), slip past another guard, make a left through the double doors, then a right through the gate (another code would have been necessary, but somehow he just pulled it open), then two more sets of stairs, down, ever down._

It was almost frightening, how simple it was. Were they not protecting their prize? How could they allow this, allow him in so easily?

The last door, access-open like the others, and the whir of machines beyond it.

The machine that was his wife, beyond it.

And the sound of voices, but not in conversation, in something more and less all at once; recitation without urgency, emotion without emphasis.

For one terrible moment, Dom thought — _I am listening to the dead speak_.

And then he knew that, in a way, he was.

Because he was listening to Mal and Eames.

Mal who should be dead, and Eames who believed he deserved to be.

"Their hair is fair, bleached by the sun, their skin tanned with summer. They've been down at the beach with me every day and they swim like fish. Well, porpoises, when it's James-boy, more water-spewage. But they're happy... and Dom will keep them that way. Strong and bright and all the good things, sweetheart. You... you did them proud when you were with them... and it will be even better to let them go, let them continue away from all of this. You know it will."

Eames was talking about Philippa and James, surely. Was he trying to distract Mal or convince her?

"Yes," Mal said, voice rusty and flat. "Yes. Keep talking."

Dom froze, his hand on the door.

"Saito's a good man. He'll take care of all of them, he's a City-master like the ones you said existed years ago, the ones we argued about that summer — no, I know you don't remember, but we did, I said no way in any hell and you kept telling me yes, and everyone wanted us to shut up...

"I miss arguing with you. Everyone else can miss loving you, but me, I'll miss being annoyed by you. Philippa does that too, gets a cause in her head — mind you, it's usually how it's not her bedtime or sweets are a decent meal — but she gets them, and she'll argue the sun down. Only child I've ever met you really can't afford to try and explain anything to, because you'll lose. And James — he's into everything before you can even get the word stop out, not that your dad doesn't try. He's missing the fear gene, that boy, Dom'll go grey and then bald before the year's out, but I suppose it'll save him time when the teens hit..."

"They are beautiful and everyone will love them?" This was Mal's voice, stilted and somehow mechanical, but still her. The sound of it took his breath away.

"They are," Eames answered like a response in a litany.

"And... Dominic? Will this Saito care for him as well?" The words, even with the flat dullness of disuse and non-emotion, were chopped and somehow jealous-sounding.

"Yeah. He will. Saito would care even for me, Mal, if he had to. He's a truly good man."

"Good. I should be sorry. At least I know that I should be. Knowledge is everything. Why then was it not enough?"

"I dunno," Eames sounded hopeless. "No clue, Mal. It's not bloody fair that it wasn't. But it wasn't, and now —"

"And now. But on my terms."

"On your terms," Eames agreed. "I promised. I won't let you down, you or Dom, I won't let go until it's time."

"Yes."

Dom pushed open the door, dropping the cloak as he did so.

Mal's eyes met his in an instant. Lords and stars, but she was glorious, still, even like this, even strapped down and plugged into more cables than any living being could be expected to accommodate. And even like this, he still loved her with a burning ache that he knew he'd never be free of.

"Dominic."

"Hello, Mal." He could not stop looking at her, drinking her in, wires and bloodless skin and visible veins, the crackles of fading tech illuminating the skin he had loved to touch, the glaring beauty of the surrounds that proclaimed her mod-ports to be his.

She was looking at him with equal greed, equal longing, but there was no love in it, no yearning, no loss. She saw him as something already possessed, and now returned to her.

He was surprised by how little that thought disturbed him.

"I'll leave you to it then, shall I?" Eames was already headed toward the door, his face bland but determined.

"And go where." Mal's voice was still inflectionless, she still kept looking at Dom and not at Eames, but it was as much a question as it had ever been in the days when her voice swooped up and down through emotion at dizzying speeds. "You have a one-way patch."

"Yeah. Well." Eames shrugged. He couldn't meet Dom's eyes.

"You used the time-port." Dom's voice sounded as blank as Mal's, reflecting none of the stunned horror that he felt. "Fuck, Eames, you _know_ —"

"Yes, _thank you_ , Dom, is now really the time —"

"This is time," Mal said. "There is only time. We move through it. You know this. Psion."

"And I can't go back, yeah, got it, brilliant, I feel so much better —"

"But you know where to go forward to." Mal, still the visionary, though her eyes glowed now with something far worse than imaginings. "One way. Only one way, now. Forward."

Eames's hand went up to the patched time-jack — Yusuf's work, Dom realised, and a lot of things made sudden, horrible sense. "Forward."

Mal moved her head fractionally. "Bring up the Mandell's course. You can put that much more of me in, without risk. You know this."

"Mal. No, it's. No."

"You promised someone else, _frère_ , before either of us." Did her voice soften at that, or was it Dom's hope? "A leap of faith, Eames."

Dom expected protest, anger, something approximating an explanation, and got none. Eames stood in silence, and Mal turned her terrible, glowing gaze to meet his at last, holding him fixed as though he were wearing a holo, and she had suppressed the waves to keep his image still, though it was Dom she now spoke to.

Could she only speak or look? Was she so disconnected that it had become a choice? Visual or audio only, what had been _done_ to her —

_oh, stars, oh lights, oh lords, my Mal..._

"Dominic. _Wire me in_."

"Don't you think we've had enough of that?" Dom asked.

"Wire me in. Dominic. Lock me on."

Eames sighed. "Not much sense in it, Mal. You know that a projected course is different from an actual course. Don't fancy spending my last moments breathing vacuum."

The old Mal would have shrugged with impatience, argued, grown angry, beaten down all resistance with emphatic gestures and words and blazing conviction. Mal now, beyond humanity, never even looked away from Dom. "I am not the one who made promises," she said.

 _But you did, you made them to me, you made them in front of officials and friends and sealed in the sigils for our eternity,_ Dom thought.

And then — 

_But so did I._

He stepped forward and found the mod that Mal would need without even having to look, never taking his eyes from hers. He knew her body better than his own, it was his gifts to her that had caused her destruction.

He trusted himself, trusted his abilities, and now, at the last extremity of life and motion, he knew that still, still and always, he trusted her.

"In five," he said grimly.

_Four._

_Three._

Eames suddenly looked up, shaking his head, "No, Dom, I need to stay here un —"

_One._

The connection was made, information feeding directly into Eames's jack. 

"— til we know for sure that —"

The echo of Eames's words hung in the air as his timejack activated and he disappeared with a burst of data feed and electronic impulses. 

Dom wished him well, wished him all the joy that life had never given him before, wished him the joy that he, Dom, had lost.

Wished him the chance to find Arthur again.

"He will not thank you for that, I think." Mal's voice was almost amused sounding. 

He missed her laughter. He missed a hundred things about her every day.

"The day Eames thanks me for anything —" Dom started, and stopped, abruptly, because there _had_ been a day when Eames had thanked him.

Had said _Please, Dom. We need this. I need this,_ and later, grief marking its way down his spine, had said, _thank you._

"Ah." Mal saw too much, as she always had. They were part of a whole, even now. "Yes. But he did."

"Yeah." Dom took her hand in his. Her fingers lay in his palm, cold and inert, as unfeeling as the rest of her had become. "He told you why I'm here, didn't he?"

"Of course." Mal's fingers twitched once, barely. They were still icy to the touch. "But it will not be you, Dominic."

"It has to be, Mal. There is no one else. And this... this is my fault, so my responsibility."

"I have never been a wilting violet." Now there was at least some inflection to her voice. "I never allowed you to make my changes. I asked for them. Any fault was my own for not heeding the warning signs."

"I should have tried harder."

She laughed then, painfully, both to herself and to him, no joy in the sound at all.

"Loved me more. Is that what you think."

"Yes. No." Dom had no idea. "Less, maybe. Maybe I should have loved you less."

"Not being loved by you would have done nothing to save me." There was no blame in her voice. It would have been easier if there had been. "It is what kept me alive for as long as I was."

Not _am_. Mal was dead. They both knew it.

It still hurt to hear.

"I don't want to live without having you to love," Dom said at last.

"But you have done. You will do. You were always the part of us that had endurance."

How could she say it so simply?

"Dominic. You are here to bring down Cobol. You could only have done this if I were connected entirely."

Grief choked him, silenced him. He nodded, once. If he spoke, he thought he would taste blood.

"Disconnect me from your Mandell," Mal said, and her voice rang with harmonics, electronic song. "And plug me back in to everything else."

"Mal —"

"And then get out."

"But what —"

"Get out," she repeated. "Live and teach our children what it is to truly love."

And for that moment, that single instance in time, she was Mal again — wife, mother, lover, daughter — all that he had ever wanted and all that he would never have again. He found that he could not refuse her even this, a death she chose, rather than one forced on her.

He kissed her, one last time, knowing there would be no response; the last embrace he should always have been able to bestow upon her body. That she lay in a coffin of wires rather than of wood made no difference.

"I couldn't have loved you more," he said against her lips. "I'm so glad I never loved you less."

Her lips parted, whether in automatic breathing-reflex or response he could not be sure, and did not wait to discover, as he yanked out the terrible little suppressor-mod he could feel in her wrist, and switched off the tracer with his other hand.

Her eyes blazed with eternity, and he smiled down at her.

"Goodbye, Mal."

_Goodbye, my dear love. Good night._

"Saito —" Mal whispered, and closed her eyes — 

And the world came apart.

**

They were victorious, or so Yusuf was gleefully claiming, loudly and repeatedly. Well, at least their part of the plan had worked out, now it was all up to Dom... and Eames.

_Eames..._

The name was like a metal spike being driven into his brain... or possibly his heart... or maybe both. They had come so far, made it through so much prejudice and misunderstanding and just downright fuckish shit, and to have it just end... 

He would have liked to feel that it would, at least, give him some sympathy towards Dom and his even more incredibly messed up life, but really, it only made him want to scream, or go on a twelve-day drunk, or rip someone's heart out with his bare hands... or cry. Cry until there were no more tears, cry until the universe was made salt and then crumbled.

_Damn it, Eames, you've made me poetic._

"Yusuf, I am seriously fine and seriously going to smack you if you don't stop fussing," Ariadne said from what seemed like an enormous distance.

"I am fussing about my wonderful, wonderful design, thank you very bloody much, and I will fuss as much as I like."

"Hey, it's mine now. Get your terms right."

Arthur sighed at the bickering. He had honestly thought they would have at least moved past this by now.

But — 

"Ours," Yusuf said then, his voice private and tender. "Ours, Ari."

He should have expected that, he'd seen all the signs. He didn't begrudge them finding each other, but their timing, the showing of it, was something he just couldn't handle right then. 

_Oh, Eames._

That wink Eames always gave him right after he'd wound him up, just for the hell of it. The way he'd always know just what to say to let Arthur know that, yes, he was serious, no matter how outlandish his suggestion might seem. His hair that never seemed to do exactly what he wanted without doing much to it; that no-one else saw anyway so he never cared about. His feet. His damn feet with their long toes and their warmth, that he could tuck his always-cold ones in between.

All the things he and he alone could touch.

All the things that were gone.

All the things that were lost.

_You promised to wake up with me..._

"If you're going to bill and coo and be all sappy, would you very much mind doing it somewhere the fuck else?" he snapped, shoving past them.

"Um, like where?" Ariadne asked. "I mean, stepping outside for a minute is kind of off the list, idiot."

"Where," Yusuf asked the air, "is the love for my genius? For the glory that is me? I can bill and coo as much as I please, thank you, I have earned the right to exude sap." He paused. "Hm. Perhaps I should not have said that last part."

"Really," Ariadne murmured, but she was laughing.

"Someplace your genius isn't," Arthur snarled back. "And I'm not touching the rest of that question."

"You just did," Yusuf pointed out.

Arthur was going to hit him.

Hard.

And possibly punch Ariadne as well if she didn't stop smirking at him.

How could they be joking and flirting when Eames might be dead, or hurt, or worse. People might say he had no imagination, but right now he could only wish that were true.

He wished he couldn't even think, let alone imagine; he wished that he wasn't thinking about how it would be now even if Dom succeeded, that he wasn't thinking about what he had said back on the dead planetoid that had once been the closest thing to a home the Psions had ever known — 

_"Fuck fate! Or, if you believe in it so strongly, just accept that fate had something else in mind for you that didn't include being here to fucking die... Fuck, Eames, accept that you were meant to be there for me..."_

_You were meant to be there for me._

It hurt. It hurt more than anything he'd ever known, and this, _this_ was why he'd never let anyone close, because he'd known, he should have known that it would end up as a loss even his walls could not stand up against.

Knowing that loving Eames had not been enough to make him believe he deserved to be alive was the final blow to the foundations of what arrogance he had left to him, and Arthur damned the Psions and the City-Corps and Saito and war to the depths of the hell he was currently inhabiting.

_Always thought arrogance was attractive..._

Eames would find him repulsive now, if that were really true. He had none left to him. No arrogance, no confidence, no way through. Just a pleading kind of hope that he was wrong, that Eames was wrong, that Yusuf had been wrong about the patch.

Anything.

_Come back to me..._

"We're sorry, Arthur..." Ariadne said softly.

"I'm not sorry."

Ariadne elbowed Yusuf in the ribs. "We didn't think. Or really I didn't think, Yusuf never does."

"Hey!"

"Yeah... it's okay," Arthur said, but it really wasn't. It might never be again.

He went back over to the control panel, and looked out at what would only ever be empty space to him, a blackness that he knew to every other eye was filled with the light and power of Ariadne's illusions.

He wished he could see them.

"— we know for sure that you've plotted the —! Well. Fuck me. It worked."

On the other hand, he could have done without the hallucinations.

"Arthur?"

No. As much as he wanted it to be, it wasn't Eames. If he turned around to look all he'd see was the empty space where Eames should be... and wasn't. He might have to move to someplace he'd never lived before, because otherwise he knew, he'd be in for a lot more of them. Anything that reminded him of Eames would bring this back... this feeling that he was there, when he wasn't.

"Arthur. Look at me, darling."

"No," Arthur said, idiotically sure of himself. "I've got all the space I want, right out there."

"Your logic is cracked. Right down the fucking middle. Because if you still can't see holos, or sense illusions, then there is no way I can be talking to you unless I'm here."

"I could be making it up."

"Flattering, and yet I'll have to go with no. Look at me, you stupid bastard. _Hey_. Proof positive, either way. Yeah?"

He was afraid to turn around. Afraid and he hadn’t been afraid since the first battle that the City Corps had flung him into, half-prepared and woefully young. But this? This was terrifying.

"Please, Arthur."

But how could he resist that voice, real or imagined? 

He turned and saw feet, clad in the vilely-coloured, disreputable boots Eames had picked up off the Freebooters, the patched flak-pants that Eames refused to get rid of because they were apparently his 'lucky trousers', dear stars above, and that Arthur had wanted to burn for years, a familiar hook-belt and then a firmly muscled stomach, bare, names and places and incomprehensible symbols all scrawled over it like some kind of demented sketch pad. No shirt, of course, because he'd needed it off to activate the jack, and Arthur didn't know if the man even owned a shirt with buttons, so of course he couldn't have put one on afterwards.

His bulk jacket had been left behind on Seisui. Arthur remembered that. It was on the end of the bed.

It was still on the end of the bed, oh lords, and he'd forgotten that until now, and that was real, that was — 

"Eames?"

"Well, yeah. Yusuf, one word and I will fucking shoot you, so don't." Eames crouched down in front of him. "Hello. Want to explain why you've decided to have a psychotic break? It's not convenient, Arthur, really. Save it for later. Hey, you can do a time-share with Dom."

And not even his mind could have come up with that sort of uncomforting response.

"Eames."

"Yeah... like I said."

"I am so going to kill you." But contrary to his words all he could do was drink the man in, fling himself against that kindergarten scrawl of a chest until they both toppled over on the deck, lips locked together as if they could only gain breath each from the other.

"But what a way to go," Eames said at last, and laughed, mad and right in Arthur's ear and utterly infuriating and _alive, alive, alive_ thrummed Arthur's pulse, almost drowning out all other sounds.

"I knew it would be terrible when they finally worked it out," Yusuf said dismally. "I simply did not realise the levels of horror. My poor eyes."

"Fuck off, Yusuf," came the reply from three different directions. Arthur was pretty sure two of them were from him, considering how utterly scattered he felt. He hung on, not caring how pathetic he must look, hung on and hung on and didn't close his eyes in case this vanished.

"You're here." Arthur was angry at himself for repeating the obvious, but somehow he was too amazed to stop. He had to thank goodness for Eames then, because another kiss kept him from saying anything more stupid.

"I hate to interrupt but... Mal? Dom? What's going on?"

Arthur thought it was sad that he was going to have to shoot Ariadne, but there was simply no other choice, because her questions caused Eames to stop kissing him.

"She... listened to reason. She'll get Dom out and then shut it all down for good."

Arthur drew back, and pushed himself away from Eames and off to the side, sitting on the metal floor of the craft in an eerie parody of their positions when they had arrived at the space-station, so long ago — except this time Eames wasn't dozing against him, he was very much awake and almost vibrating with spent adrenaline, and he was making less sense than usual. "What — Mal —"

"Mal's dead," Eames said, and shivered, and he wasn't okay at all, not even remotely, even if he had come back, even if he had achieved the impossible. Arthur hissed air between his teeth, and tried not to think about all that the bleak little statement contained, letting Eames grip his wrist, ignoring the pain, because he felt that same need; to feel blood moving, to feel warmth, continuance, proof of life. "She — wants to be dead on her own terms, that's all."

"Can you trust that? Are you sure?" Ariadne again.

"Yeah," Eames mumbled. He sounded almost as bad as he had before they went to the dead planetoid. "Definite. M'sure. Can I not. Just. I don't. Not yet." He took a deep breath, and looked up. "Sorry, Ari," he said more clearly. "I can't."

"Eames, did Dom get there, did — you have to give us something, we can't just take this on faith," Ariadne persisted.

"She got me back here," Eames said, stark and hard. "On faith. So yeah. You can."

Arthur gave Eames a searching look, letting him know that this might be the end of the conversation that was being had with Ariadne, but he _was_ going to ask later, and then nodded his head, letting it go — for now, and for everyone's sake. "Yeah... all right. So now we just wait? For... for Dom?"

"And let Saito know, I s'pose."

"Are we sure Saito does not already know?" Yusuf asked with a faint glimmer of humour.

"No," said Eames very dryly. If it hadn't been for the relentless pressure of his fingers, Arthur might have thought he was completely back in the game. "But I'm sure he's got a list of what he'll do to us if we don't tell him anyway."

"I'll tell him," Ariadne said, and then, helplessly, "What do I tell him?"

"Mission accomplished." Arthur said with a shrug of his shoulder. "Tell him, 'Mission accomplished.'"

 _"Attention, Mandell..."_ A voice came over their subspace comm. _"Are you getting all this? The reports? Mandell?"_

"Just now checking, Commander," Ariadne toggled the switch, bringing up split-screens from the different news agencies. It was apparent which were independent and which Cobol controlled... almost hilariously apparent.

"Oh, my." Yusuf looked amused. "We're either terrorists, freedom-fighters, or a systems malfunction. How to choose. How to choose."

"I want to be a terrorist," Ariadne said, apropos of nothing particular. "I mean, if we have to choose. Malfunctions are boring, and freedom-fighter? Just not me. Too... soap-boxy."

"You _are_ a fucking terrorist," Eames grumbled. "Definition: terrifying."

"What's the one that blows things up? Arthur can be that."

"Um, they all do?" Eames was starting to laugh, which was a hell of a lot better than whatever he'd been on the verge of before, but he didn't show any signs of wanting to get up. Arthur was pretty much fine with that.

"So I'm a malfunctioning freedom-fighter —"

"Which would in fact make you a terrorist, yes," Yusuf chipped in.

"Awesome, we're all terrorists," Ariadne said happily. 

"Is this going to be like the pirates? You know, the ones that weren't?"

_"Mandell, your comms are open..."_

"Oops?" Arthur could not keep the dry tone out of his voice. "Commander, if anyone in this fleet still had illusions about our sanity, don't you think it best that we correct them?"

There was a stuttering bark of laughter over the comm, "Acknowledged, Mandell. Carry on."

"I have no doubts whatsoever as to your sanity," said Saito's voice. "Your sense of the appropriate, however, is entirely and communally non-existent."

"Awww, you're too kind," Ariadne said happily. "Hey, Saito, what gives with Dom?"

"He..." There was a pause which, for once, was not Saito waiting for effect. "He has not yet returned to the craft."

"Shit," said Eames. "I knew I shouldn't have — I should get back and —"

"You touch that time-jack and I will _remove your hand_ ," said Arthur, and meant it. Eames blinked at him.

"Er. Right."

"Besides," Arthur continued, signalling for Ari to cut the feed to the fleet. Crazy they might be but the rest of this was 'family' business. "... everything is shutting down, going off-line. Right, Saito? If something had happened with Dom... that wouldn't be happening, right?"

"That doesn't mean she let him go." Ariadne interrupted. "She might decide that they were destined to be together... alive or dead."

"No," Eames said, and there was something in his voice that made even Ariadne shut up. "She's past that kind of emotion."

"We cannot be sure," Saito's disembodied voice began carefully, and then there was complete and total audio silence.

"Saito?"

Nothing.

" _Saito!_ " Yusuf shouted pointlessly at the comm. "Damn it —"

"Oh, I think we can," Arthur said, getting to his feet. "She's disconnected the whole planet."

"And possibly _Dom_ , I'm not cheered up —" Ariadne started, and Eames stood up beside Arthur and said quickly — 

"No, she hasn't, she's taking everything down, _we're_ the only thing disconnected from _her_ —"

"What?"

"Yeah... that was the last thing I heard her say to Dom — to reconnect everything but the Mandell."

Arthur wondered if her controls were really that refined. To exclude one very small ship's markers in the vastness of space, when surrounded by an entire fleet of larger vessels... how much discretionary control must she have at her fingertips? Cobol must have been far more truly insane than they'd ever given them credit for.

"Ari, get holo-shields up, _now_ ," Yusuf said out of nowhere. "If everything is about to go down, a lot of things are going to become very very bright, and if someone doesn't block the waves —"

"We can't comm. anyone to warn them, damn," Ariadne said. "I'll have to drop the fleet-illusion —"

"That's fine, I don't think it matters any more —"

"Terrifying, both of you, I swear," Eames said, and then —"Oh fuck. Holo-shields."

Ariadne slammed her hand down into the controls, just a half-second too late. Bright and brilliant flares of light scattered across their screen, casting rainbows on their faces.

"Lords. What was that?" Ariadne asked. 

"Mal," was Eames's simplistic reply.

 _"Mandell? Hello? Hello? Fuck. Hello? Arthur, is the comm. back on?"_ Dom's voice crackled into life to the accompaniment of Saito's very un-avatar-like laughter.

"Doubt that the stars are fire," Yusuf murmured, as though to himself. "But never doubt I love. You were right, Eames. Faith."

Ariadne pressed the control back to open. "Hey, Dom," she said.

"Ari —? Good. Good. Are you all okay there?" Dom's face appeared on their screen. He sounded nervous rather than sorrowing. _It probably hasn't all sunk in yet_ , Arthur thought. "Is... Is Eames with you?"

So that was it. Had everyone but he known about Eames's one-way ticket? 

"I'm here, Dom. Safe as houses." 

"She did it, Eames." Dom said simply. "She did it... and she's gone."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"No," Dom said, and Arthur had been wrong in his assessment, he had been terribly wrong, because this was not a lack of acceptance, this was Dom finally at peace; grieving and at peace. "No." He smiled. "I could tell her goodbye."

**

Stepping off the Mandell when they arrived back at Seisui felt very much like returning home…and nothing at all like it. How someone could feel exhilarated and yet so detached at the same time was something that Eames had often felt after a battle, but had never understood. 

This time it was an especially disjointed feeling. He'd been nervous and focused when he arrived inside Cobol, then horrified and saddened to see what their beloved Mal had become — but determined to do what he had to do, to convince her to let him. And she had, and too soon after that, the dizzying change too sudden for complete sanity or comprehension, there had been the triumph and the joy of actually surviving, of returning to Arthur, of actually being alive, all of them being alive…

Now there was nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. There was a feeling of accomplishment, he supposed and somewhere, a deep down feeling that he barely recognized as contentment. 

He wondered if he would have even recognized it at all if it hadn't been for the long months they'd spent on Seisui beforehand. It wasn't something he'd experienced in his life.

"Hey." A soft voice interrupted his introspection. "Where did you go?"

Too many answers to that, and most of them he wasn't entirely sure of. All the responses that came to mind — _when do you mean, where do you mean, are we talking time or distance, do you mean now, do you mean then?_ — would sound flippant and uncaring, even if he meant them.

Even if he wanted to ask, wanted to know.

When and where would never be questions anyone could ask of him, not and expect an entirely sane answer. Even with Cobol gone, even with Yusuf's patch removed from his time-jack, there were cracks and fissures in the boundaries of his life, where most people expected and found unyielding certainty.

"Not sure," he said at last. It was honest, at least, even if, like all honesty, it was only one layer of the many truths that surrounded his words. "Here. The Mandell. The Gates." It wasn't humour that made him laugh. "Mal had universes in her mind."

There was silence at that, but not an uncomfortable one, considering what silence could be like, and especially with Arthur, who knew all too well how to use it for a weapon. "It's not surprising. She always wanted to see more and know more. "

"She should have done it in person." Eames gave a half smile. "It's far more satisfying."

There was a pause. "On her own?" Arthur sounded uncertain.

"Dom's not a traveller."

Too much they weren't saying. It felt heavy as rain in the air — but Arthur laughed, sudden and surprising.

"He hasn't done too badly, considering. No, I know what you meant. He's not. I don't think he'll leave here again, or at least not for long. He's like the man in that story, the old one."

Eames turned his head enough for a long, incredulous stare. "Er," he said helpfully.

"Shut up. The stories, like with Ari's legend. The man who wanted to go home, who did all those things on his way there..."

"Arthur, I'm impressed that you seem to have read something not relevant to your specific needs at some time in your life, but seriously, _what_?"

"There were pigs?" Arthur said, not sounding as if he was entirely sure. "I think. Maybe that was someone else."

"Pigs," Eames repeated blankly, and then — " _Odysseus_? You think Dom's like Odysseus? Arthur, he's —" _Nothing like and everything like. Only you. Only you, who can't see illusion, would know that._ "Yeah, I can see that," he finished up, instead of mocking.

All around them were the sounds of homecoming as men and women left the ships of the returning fleet and were greeted by those they had left behind. Mates were kissed, children hugged, friends greeted, all with the joyful sounds of returning warriors.

They had taken their friends, their little family, with them. No greetings on their return, Eames thought, but not sadly. 

"Welcome home, gentlemen." 

Or perhaps he was wrong.

"Thank you, Kazue." Arthur spoke for both of them.

_Home._

Again, it was but it wasn't. Arthur's hand on his shoulder made it so.

"I think I meant welcome _back_ ," Kazue corrected herself. "You arrived home before now."

It was rare for her to say so much, the cautious, quiet words the equivalent of gushing ebullience from anyone else — Kazue, the reason for Seisui's creation, the living embodiment of the deep serenity which lay at the heart of Saito's power.

Water and flame and glass and the reflection of all living things, contained in a stillness that made time irrelevant.

Saito built his empires and his worlds, not for his own glory, but to reflect hers, and it was a humbling realisation, to know that just as Mal had destroyed a universe from love, so Saito built one.

"Thank you, love," Eames leaned in and gently kissed Kazue's cheek. She blushed very prettily and then moved on to welcome Ariadne and Yusuf.

"Flirt." Arthur teased, as they watched her move away.

"Only with you, darling," Eames answered, wrapping his arm around Arthur's shoulders and tugging him closer. "I think I've had about as much homecoming as I want. You?"

Arthur looked around him with ostentatious distaste, at Ariadne, kissing Kazue's cheek while her scarred left hand remained unconsciously tangled in Yusuf's right one, at Dom and Saito, carrying on some silent conversation that ended with a half-bow from Saito, while Dom shifted a half-sleeping James against his shoulder; at Yumi and Philippa, dancing through the pilots with the confidence of celebration to come.

At Miles, staring out past the crowd, out to the sea and beyond it, to the horizon and the stars that his daughter had owned, tears on his face even while he smiled.

"More than," he said fervently, and then — "Eames. I _am_ a traveller."

And a weight Eames hadn't even known was resting on him lifted and dissolved, as though it had never been.

"Yeah," he said lightly. "But I know that." 

It was why, after all, that Arthur was here and not in some ivory-clad tower spending his days planning sky-castles and bits of fluff for people who were just like him. People who observed and didn't do, who didn't travel, but expected the universe to be brought to them, brightly shining and open to their view.

"I know that," he said again.

He had always known it, he realised. He had known it from that first meeting in the terrible little bar, with its battered marble counters, known it even when he reached for a knife and thought only of death and survival in a time-jumbled, frantic moment of panic.

He had known it when Arthur swore at the hover-bike, on the dead planet that was all the Psions had left to them as a memorial, known it each and every time Arthur failed to see the holos; when he ignored Maf's laser gun on the space-station, understood why he could not kill Lukho; when he supported Dom's madness and sanity with equal determination.

When he sat in the Mandell's piloting chair and refused to look at what might be an illusion, because hope was the worst deception of them all.

"Travel with me," Eames said softly, pulling Arthur even closer, "and where ever we are will be home."

No more promises to come back. No need to make them.

"Yes," Arthur replied, "always."

They left the landing field and returned to their room in Saito's house, their hands never leaving the other.

They had time.

Time the enemy, time the thief.

Time the victor, and the universe ran with it and before it — as would they.

**

They undressed each other quickly, but with no sense of urgency, not any more. It was want that drove them, not time, and skin hunger and heat. It drove them toward the bed and settled them in with long languid touches and soft tender kisses, all of it building.

"Touch me… yes there…"

"Love when you — God, yes…"

A jumble of words, never voiced completely, cut off by kisses and shocks of lust, and all the feelings Eames had missed back on the tarmac of the landing field came crawling back under his skin, insistently led by Arthur's touch.

Desperation and despair had been left behind in Cobol's ashes and Mal's blazing validation of faith, a world where it could have been so different, could have been hell, could have been a void and a grey-dust memory, and was nothing of the kind.

It was real and sharp and almost too much life, crawling under and over his nerves like the knives and ink and ash, and better and more than all of it.

Arthur was inside him now, under his skin, in his heart like no one had ever been. He covered him, like one of his temp mods, only rather than hiding him, Arthur brought him into the light, to sight, to brilliance and ecstasy.

"Yes… please…Now!"

He loved this, lusted after it even when he had it, the sound and feel of his own body, of Arthur's body, the jolting suddenness of completion, the wonder and surprise at his own response, the black dazzle of nothing that followed, and the slow drift back to silence and awareness, strangest of waking dreams.

"Unfair," he said nonsensically, and Arthur laughed.

"Yeah, I never claimed fair."

"Hitting you takes energy. Don't got it."

The sun was setting, painting the room in colours that belonged behind closed eyelids, so far from the twin cold suns that it was more than another world, but another life entirely.

Suddenly there was a rather loud pounding on the door frame, interrupting their peace. Yusuf, of course.

"If you two are quite finished in there, kindly get your trousers on and come out. I emphasise the trousers as a requirement."

Arthur dropped his head down on Eames's shoulder, "Shooting him would be bad, right?"

"Shooting him would be bloody fantastic," Eames corrected him, "but vengeance would be Ari's, and after today's display? No thanks."

"Trousers!" Yusuf yelled.

"Fuck off!" Eames yelled back.

"Quite right, wash first," Yusuf continued at top volume and with undented cheerfulness.

"I _am_ going to shoot him," Arthur said, equally loudly.

"No you are not, you are going to do as I say." Underneath the happy rudeness, Yusuf sounded oddly serious. "Wash, dress, out here, please."

"Bugger," Eames sighed.

"Again?" Arthur chuckled and shifted his hips.

"I'm waiting," Yusuf singsonged through the door.

"He's not going to go away, is he?" Eames groaned.

"No, I'm not!"

"Five minutes?" Eames wasn't above begging.

"And I will be right. Here." Yusuf responded. "Listening for the sound of something that is not sex."

"How do you know what —" Arthur started, and Eames slammed a hand over his mouth. "Mrph?"

"You want him to answer that?"

Arthur considered for a moment, then shook his head rather violently.

"Five minutes," Eames repeated. Yusuf started to bang out the rhythm to something terrible on the door.

They managed it in four and a half, if only to get the noise to stop.

"What the fuck is so important, Yusuf?"

Yusuf led them out onto the terrace of Saito's house, "Well, it's not that it's important to me. Not exactly. But it's important to them."

The terrace and lawns were full of people, soldiers, families, children, groups of them gathered and separating and regathering like the waves on the nearby beach.

"What's going on?"

"A celebration," said Yusuf.

"Yeah, we were trying to avoid that, mate, in case you hadn't noticed —"

"Shut up," Yusuf said, oddly gentle. He put his hand on Eames's shoulder, waiting for and riding out the instinctive flinch away. "Shut up and look."

"What _at_?" Arthur asked, irritable with badly-hidden curiosity.

"The sky," said Yusuf, tilting his head back to suit action to his words. He was smiling.

And the first firework, red-gold and sputtering smoke, trailed across their vision.

The flinch was even more pronounced as the first bang of the rocket's explosion rent the air. "Damn."

"They want this, my friend. For you, for them, for new beginnings," Yusuf spoke quickly. "This is not a celebration of defeat or victory, but for birth."

"And because you're a smug bastard who can't resist one-upping history," Eames pointed out.

"Because I am a smug bastard who did so in person," Yusuf said. He looked away from the sky, and his hand was warm and unmoving. "And so are you. All of us. We changed what the world means, you know. And we will change it further."

"And remember what we're changing it from." Arthur was on the verge of laughter and sarcasm both, an oddly heady mixture when it could be heard in his usually cool voice. "Yusuf, you're —"

"Brilliant, I know," Yusuf agreed with a nod. "I love to be recognised at my true worth."

And with that, Yusuf was off, swaggering across the lawn towards a grinning Ariadne in a way that made both Eames and Arthur laugh, before turning their heads back to the sky.

"It's... really beautiful." Arthur sounded almost grudging about the fact.

"Yeah." Could this be his life now? Their life? Light and the open spaces of Saito's vision, rather than shadow and camouflage? It had been so long since he had been able to rely on anything but the intricacies of subterfuge, of hidden and half-truths, and he wasn't sure if he could manage it. Considering what that life, the life-in-death of a Psion, had almost cost him — "Arthur?"

He didn't have to speak further, "It's alright, Eames. It will be alright."

Will be. It was not, yet. What he had done was not yet forgiven — _could not_ be forgiven, not without time. But he had known that, even thinking he would not be around to work for that forgiveness, he had known that — and time, time was something they had.

It would be alright, in the end.

Something in the tone of that familiar voice made him believe, as it always had and would make him believe. In spite of the past, that was something he thought he was ready for. 

More than ready for.

Four more rockets exploded at once, lighting the night sky and the future.

**

**epilogue: {but then the leaf}**

Of all the things they had done for Dom since Saito had changed the universe, this had to be the most ridiculous. And that was saying a lot for two men who had been asked to deliver a kiloton of candied grapes to Erasmus Four as a wedding gift for the Governor's daughter and then had been pressed into service as ushers at the wedding. 

Of course, the sight of Eames, his tattoos peeking out from under the abbreviated formal wear that the girl had chosen to use because her soon-to-be-husband looked 'absolutely dreamy' in it, had been worth the trouble and more. Also, the fact that too much Spring Wine at the reception had lead to some very interesting naked exercise once they got back on their ship hadn't hurt one bit either.

But none of those facts negated the silliness of what they were currently doing.

"Really, James, you need to come down. Now."

"No!"

"Was that the first word he ever learned?" Arthur asked the universe helplessly. The universe failed to respond. Eames, on the other hand, halfway up the tree on the other side, yelled back —"Probably!"

"I'm not coming down unless I can fly," James said petulantly from his branch.

"I'm starting to think of ways to arrange just that," Eames pointed out. "James. How did you _get_ up here?"

"Off the roof," James said proudly.

"Fucking hell," said Arthur. He'd long since given up trying not to swear around James.

"Are you sure he's Dom's son and not yours?" Eames looked down at his partner with an amused expression.

"Positive," Arthur said dryly. The boy did have a much more adventurous streak than Dom had ever conceived of. He loved action and explosions and things that were flamboyant and larger than life. Why that would remind Eames of him, Arthur had no idea.

"Speaking of which, why am I up this tree rather than Dom?" Eames called back down as he looked for his next foothold.

"Because Dom is the guest of honour at an actual tea ceremony rather than the millionth practice run, and he told us to fuck off and sort it or be eviscerated by one of Kazue's hair ornaments," Arthur said less than patiently.

"Oh. Right. James, light of my life, could you possibly consider just getting off the branch that your uncle is about to fucking break if he puts any more weight on it and get down here one little level?"

"I have wings," James said defiantly.

It was true. He did. How he'd got them to _work_ , being as they seemed to be constructed mostly of glue, Arthur had no idea, but he imagined it was something to do with the roof and he didn't want to know.

"Yes. Yes, you do. And they are beautiful. But perhaps a few more tests before you launch yourself from twenty feet up? Hmmm?" Arthur argued. "Even test pilots would take that precaution."

"They already got me from the house to here, Uncle Arthur. They work good."

There was a sharp crack and he saw Eames make a desperate grab for the tree trunk. The branch didn't break, but James was now stretched out along it, rather than perched.

"I am going to _kill both of you_ ," Arthur said through gritted teeth.

"I don't think you're going to need to bother," Eames said shortly. "James, stop being a little — brat, and if you're going to fall, land on Arthur's head."

"Um —" Arthur started in protest.

"Either that or I will," Eames pointed out.

"Yeah, go for it, James," Arthur said in resignation.

"Cool!" with no further warning James leapt from the tree branch, arms and legs spread wide, resembling nothing more than a very gangly looking giant tree squirrel.

"No! Wait!" Eames made a grab for him, missing by mere inches and only avoiding a tumble to the ground by a good catch on the next lower branch.

"Oh, fuck…" Arthur braced himself for the impact.

One of James's wings hit him hard in the face. The rest of James landed on his chest.

They both sat down in a very heavy, glue-smelling heap on the grass.

"Wonderful," Arthur said to the sky.

"Again!" said James.

Eames, negotiating the tree, said nothing at all. Probably because he was laughing too hard at Arthur's expense.

Arthur could feel his nose bleeding. He tugged a handkerchief out of his pocket to staunch the flow. "No more test runs until your landings are improved."

"But —"

"No." Arthur said simply. "Or at least no until your father says it's alright to try again." Which would, he rather thought, once he told Dom, be the far side of never.

"But —"

"No."

"I could try —"

"James Dominic Cobb."

"Yes, Uncle Arthur."

"Vocabulary extension into agreements, I'm so impressed," Eames said, finally landing on the ground. "Well done, James, did you break his nose or just smack him a good one?"

"It's not broken," Arthur said, hating them both when James looked hopeful. "Sorry to disappoint."

"Yeah, damn, I was going to give James a bone-setting lesson, what a shame. Right, you. Inside. Wings off. Wash."

"But —"

" _Get_ ," said Eames, in the tones that even Philippa in full flight of argument-exposition never tried to wriggle around or gain concessions from. "Go away, you horrible child, I need ten minutes of no you in my life, before I can start to cope again."

James, thankfully, accepted this as being perfectly reasonable, and went off, wings trailing in derelict splendour behind him.

"And this, again, is why we are never having children…" Arthur wiped the blood off of his face, "…I mean aside from the obvious."

"Don't exactly need them, do we?" Eames took the handkerchief and got the spots that Arthur had missed. "We've got Pip and James and Yumi to look after, not to mention Yusuf and Ari, who are just as bad, only taller."

"Worse," Arthur said. "At least none of the actual kids have Saito's army to back them. I don't think. Oh stars, tell me they haven't."

"No, not yet. And yeah, okay, worse," Eames agreed. He had an interesting-looking scratch down one forearm, which he licked at absently.

" _You're_ worse," Arthur said, hopelessly fond. Eames blinked at him, arm still in his mouth. He looked deranged.

"Okay?" he said, his voice rather muffled.

"I'M GETTING WASHED!" James announced loudly from the house. Arthur spared a brief prayer for the bathrooms.

"QUIETLY!" Eames yelled back. At least he didn't look like he was eating his own arm any more.

"You're headed for a premature grave," Arthur said to no-one in particular, and lay back in the grass, yawning. "Lords, next time we get the tea ceremony, yeah?"

"It's a promise," Eames said stretching out next to him with a comfortable sigh.

This was what he'd never expected on that day so long ago when he'd seen Eames in that bar. He might have considered the physical attraction, he'd certainly considered the amazing sex more than once in the time following that meeting, and just possibly, if he'd been capable of it at the time, he might have considered all the adventure, the bad and the good of it, but this? Never. 

Maybe contentment was not something you could foresee, Arthur considered. Maybe it was just something that happened.

He was just glad it was happening to them.

 _Time the thief_ , Eames had called it, in their first days on Seisui, that now seemed so long ago, and perhaps it had been, then.

But now it was something more, something that stretched forward as well as behind, something that had given all of them a peace they had never imagined along with the war that, in the end, had been fought and won for them by Mal's sacrifice and Ariadne's illusions.

What they had been was looking as though it would pass into myth, become no more than a part of the story that was Saito's creation of unified city-planets.

Saito, the man who had disguised himself as an AI, the hero of his own legend-in-the-making.

The rest of them would pass into obscurity.

And Arthur was content.

**

Living in the real world was more amazing than Ariadne had ever thought it would be. To be out in the universe doing actual things, using her mind and her hands together, rather than simply studying and expounding on what others had done before her was… well, yeah, amazing was actually too small a word for how she felt about it. Stupendous! Brilliant! The very best! 

One of those, or possibly all of them.

She thought of them because Yusuf used all of them. Yusuf, whose enthusiasm nothing could quench, not even the past, not even grief, not even the terrifying beginnings of Saito's new world. Yusuf, venal and corrupt and who had become one of the best things in her life, as he had once told her she was to him.

Yusuf, who by his obliviousness to power, quelled her thirst for it when it grew too great. It prevented her from following Mal's path, from seeking out ever more control, more command. He would never share her desire for it, never find her more desirable if she had it.

"He's your mod-inhibitor," Dom had said once, in the very early days after the destruction of Cobol. "That's his genius."

She thought that was probably the truth. These days she needed that anchor the way Dom needed his kids. Dom, whom Saito had left in charge of the whole of Seisui while he went to try to stabilize the City of the Gates, was more a family man now than he ever had been when Mal was alive. He sat in on tutoring sessions, let Philippa and Yumi serve him cup after cup of awful tea while they practised some ceremony or other, and kept James from attempting to cliff dive in some mad scheme he concocted about pearl diving. They all ran him ragged while Yumi's mother, Kazue, watched with amusement, offering sensible suggestions to resolve all the insanity. Dom was happier than Ariadne had ever seen him.

Dom had a family, and he had power that rested lightly upon him, and unconditional support from all sides, and while none of it would ever quite fill the gap of Mal's absence, Ariadne knew that he would not want it to, that he was happier like this than he could ever have been had she remained alive-and-not, a dead shell without any spark but that of the perm-mods he had once created for her with such love.

Mal could be remembered now in more than ash-scarring, could be remembered with all the love and laughter and exasperation of memory. They could all carry the marks of her life, of her passing, and be proud of them.

Saito had kept his promises, the spoken and the unspoken; he was like the genie of stories, granting wishes at an incalculable price — Mal's death, Cobol's fall, the lives of so many who had been on the planet when Mal tore the systems down into a void.

But Dom had his family, and Ariadne the army she had once created from nothing more than her perm-mod and the power of her mind, and no-one would ever know what Yusuf wanted, least of all the man himself, but he had the freedom to plunge into the depths of discovery, as he looked for it. Perhaps he had wanted the quest more than a fact.

And then there was Arthur… and Eames, of course. You seldom saw one without the other these days. They were a team that was unstoppable and they were the 'hands' for all that Saito was trying to accomplish, the public demonstration of the motion and the act and the performance of the work he had set out for a world to become of age, all made into a contactable, operating system rather than a hidden force.

The City Corps soldier and the Psion warrior… together. They were a walking poster for tolerance and cooperation, for rebuilding things with no restricting caste system. 

_If they can find love,_ Ariadne had heard more than once, even among the fleet that she now commanded and controlled, second only to Saito's authority, even among the remaining inhabitants of the City of the Gates, among all those of the old prejudices, the oldest wounds, _then perhaps..._

Perhaps, maybe, someday, soon.

All things were possible, and the possibility walked among them, laughing and dangerous and protective and very much alive.

The Psion who had defeated time, the City-Corps soldier who had conquered illusion. 

They would have been nothing more than legend, if they were not so visible. 

Ariadne, Academe and General, might command the power of war, but they were the image of the peace Saito had determined it would bring. 

Saito, City-master and ruler, who had seen before the days of the space-station how each one of them would fit to his hand, and waited until they were ready to match his foresight.

Saito's system, where people were valued for knowledge and creativity and the labor of their hands, rather than for where they were born.

It was a full circle, woven through with many warps and wefts, with Saito at the centre tugging at the threads until it was perfection. Or at least headed towards perfection, because even Saito knew how boring true perfection could get, and that there should always be room left in the universe for scavengers and illegal traders, pirates and freebooters. The trick was simply to make certain that the architects and carpenters outnumbered those who tried to tear things down.

The balance of illusion and reality, held together by Saito's force of will.

Sometimes it frightened her, how easily she understood that power, how easy it was to love a world by virtue of being part of its creation — but only sometimes, only in the shadowy depths of her soul, and those shadows were easily banished.

And she wondered if Dom knew all of Saito's plans. She wondered if it was only she who had realized who Saito had in mind to name as his heir. Not Yumi, for all that she was just like her father, for all that she seemed to see the cause and effect of everything. 

Rather it was Philippa, Ariadne was certain, that Saito had chosen for his public face. Philippa who was learning in front of them to create sunshine from mist and mist from desert, who was an actress born. 

Where Yumi's face was often far too open or far too closed, revealing too much of what she felt and knew, Philippa could be whatever was required, and seemed to know in a moment exactly what face to wear. 

She would have been a Psion, once, Ariadne thought.

A true chameleon, who would soak in the information and direction that Yumi gave her and know exactly how best to make it work, the mask over power in a world that claimed to no longer need disguise.

Ariadne wondered if Arthur and Eames knew what their visibility was paving the way for, on Seisui and the City of the Gates both; the kind of partnership that the city-planets would accept long before it had any power in reality. 

She wondered if Dom had any inkling of what he and Mal had given the world, their greatest creation that defied all modification.

She wondered, more than any of it, when James would know that if Philippa was Saito's heir, he was hers, that he, too, would command armies, that he would become the General to Philippa's City-master.

The boy who wanted to fly.

The boy who believed that all men could defy gravity by willpower alone.

The boy who would one day be the iron fist of his sister's power, as Ariadne was Saito's, who would become the hidden force beneath Yumi's velvet persuasion.

But for now, Ariadne had time, and Yusuf, and love, and an army.

She was still the Academe, and she had made that title into something of more worth than the towers had ever given it.

She had power to command, and her inheritance was the stars.

FIN

_Through that window — all else being extinct  
Except itself and me — I saw the struggle   
Of darkness against darkness. Within the room   
It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw   
How order might — if chaos wished — become:   
And saw the darkness crush upon itself,   
Contracting powerfully; it was as if   
It killed itself, slowly: and with much pain.   
Pain. The scene was pain, and nothing but pain.   
What else, when chaos draws all forces inward   
To shape a single leaf? . . .   
For the leaf came   
Alone and shining in the empty room;   
After a while the twig shot downward from it;   
And from the twig a bough; and then the trunk,   
Massive and coarse; and last the one black root.   
The black root cracked the walls. Boughs burst   
the window:   
The great tree took possession.   
Tree of trees!   
Remember (when time comes) how chaos died   
To shape the shining leaf. Then turn, have courage,   
Wrap arms and roots together, be convulsed   
With grief, and bring back chaos out of shape.   
I will be watching then as I watch now.   
I will praise darkness now, but then the leaf._

**Author's Note:**

>  **Authors' notes:** This would never have been finished or even half-way coherent without alernun, who betaed right up to the wire and endured all the revisions that resulted, and gileonnen, who talked us through world-building and how to get it right in the small hours of too many mornings. There's no way of conveying our immense gratitude and awe at their patience and kindness.
> 
> Also, you can find the art for this story here: [Art Post for "Chaos Out of Shape"](http://itseemsneater.livejournal.com/3307.html)


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